
II P II I' l"'l'''Hl!i' 
'li|illml!i|ili!!;!iil|i|H!liil 

;i iiilMi! ■ Hr! ■:! Mill' ':'■'' 



iiii" 



•illilLHHmi 



m 



liliil'i 



"lilii: 



;;; u; li! :iii:':!i n 



'li'lliiliiPiil! 



II 



^i Pl ii'pi'n !;P|l|l!,ii 
hi 1 i-miiiHi I h*.it 



i|ii!l:i>iVii;i' 

'i!y'lii!'''iili',!;!{l!' 

'Wiii|li!il'"!iii!li!' 
■•,'il!! ' 



t' 



•'il!!i'i'ilii|li!i!u'ii;,.t 

,i,i:iity:|il','. ..Mllii!!)':' 



WiW>' 



ii'i: 



' ''I 

iiiir.'ti' 



*'',l!l' 



; ! ' I'll')- 
i nil- !i:!|!. 



(1 lliili*- " 



'l";i;l| 



ililiiliiiiliii: 



t ■ !.; p ^ 



1 i.-njir I -'n ;)• 



\m% 




Class _1 ' ' 






Book.. 






Copyiightl^?- 



COPyRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



RELIGION AND ITS WORTH 



RELIGION FOR MEN 



BY 
ALVAH SABIN HOBART 

Professor of New Testament Interpretatton 
Crozer Theological Seminary 



JlBsocfatfon preaa 

New York: 124 East 28th Street 

London: 47 Paternoster Row, E.G. 

1912 






Copyright, 1912, by 

The International Committee of 

Young Men's Christian Associations 



CC1.A319465 
"Ha- / 



PREFACE 

The attitude of the average man of to- 
day toward the Christian religion is not one 
of open hostility but rather one of careless 
indifference. Actual atheism is very largely 
a thing of the past, and while multitudes of 
men live as though *' there is no God," only 
here and there is one who openly avows his 
denial of a belief In God. The average man 
leaves God out of the affairs of his life, not 
by any carefully defined plan or purpose but 
simply by neglect. Prof. James wrote that 
if actions dictated by religion are not dif- 
ferent from those dictated by irreligion then 
religion is a superfluity. So, if the life of 
any man is not made to differ by his religious 
faith he might as well have no faith. 

There are several controlling reasons why 
many men are thus so indifferent. Probably 
the undue emphasis that has been placed in 
the past upon denominational differences has 

S 



6 PREFACE 

been a large contributor. The neglect of 
ethical and practical teaching has been an- 
other. And a third is the mistaken but not 
surprising idea that religion is unscientific. 

But whatever the reasons, a majority of 
the men of our day apparently consider the 
question of their personal relation to Christ 
and His Church as non-essential to them in 
their busy lives. The writer has been 
through the trials that accompany the journey 
from an inherited faith to an Intelligent con- 
viction that the Christian religion is the most 
reasonable and just guide of life. In writ- 
ing this book he invites men that may be in 
doubt to give the effort and the time to fol- 
low the thread and see for themselves 
whether there is not for them a present com- 
fort and a sure ground of hope, in the Chris- 
tian religion. 

Alvah S. Hobart. 

Chester, Pa., 19 12. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I ,^0^ 

Religion and Its Worth . « :•, •• .^ -., ,• ,.- ;•; ii 

CHAPTER H 
The Sources of Information About the DivineI . 35 

CHAPTER III 
The Sorrows of Irreligion — Their Source . > $7 

CHAPTER IV 
Gk)D's Interest in Our Religion . . . . . • 81 

CHAPTER V 
The Efficient Saviour from Irreligion • :,i i»: .. 105 

CHAPTER VI 
Twin Conditions of the Christian Religion . . 127 

CHAPTER VII 
The Steady Tendency of the Christian Religion 147 

CHAPTER VIII. 
The Glorious Triumph of the Christian Religion 169 



RELIGION AND ITS WORTH 



Lord thou hast been our dwelling place in all genera- 
tions. — Ps. 90: 1. 



CHAPTER I 

RELIGION AND ITS WORTH 

It is a matter of great regret that because 
some minor idea of religion is either being 
questioned or disputed men are tempted to 
put the whole matter of religion into the 
class of uncertain or unimportant things. 

Because of this tendency the reader is asked 
to consider the advantages there are in re- 
ligion. He Is not asked to consider any 
system of theology, though theologies are im- 
portant; nor any ceremonies, however im- 
portant; nor any church connection, though 
also valuable; but that phase and part of 
religion which a man may take with him into 
his office, into the woods of the North, In- 
to the jungles of Africa, on the cars, or Into 
the sick bed. Religion as It Is here con- 
sidered Is not any form of worship, but that 
which gives vitality to all forms; not some 

[II] 



12 RELIGION FOR MEN 

^ay of explaining religious opinions, or feel- 
ings, but that underlying something which, 
though real and mighty in our thinking, is 
a mystery to us all. The feeling which the 
poet Bryant described as follows: 

" The groves were God's first temples. Ere man learned 
To hew the shaft and lay the architrave, 
And spread the roof above them — ere he framed 
The lofty vault to gather and roll back 
The sound of anthems — in the darkling wood, 
Amid the cool and silence, he knelt down 
And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks 
And supplication. For his simple heart 
Might not resist the sacred influences 
Which, from the stilly twilight of the place, 
And from the gray old trunks that high in heaven 
Mingled their mossy boughs, and from the sound 
Of the invisible breath that swayed at once 
All their green tops, stole over him, and bowed 
His spirit with the thought of boundless power 
And inaccessible majesty." 

That was religion In the raw material, — ^ 
in the savage mind — chiefly reverence and 
awe. The Hebrew psalmist was clearer in 
his idea : '' Whither shall I flee from thy 
presence? If I take the wings of the morn- 
ing and dwell in the uttermost parts of the 
earth, even there shall thy hand lead me, 



RELIGION AND ITS WORTH 13 

and thy right hand shall hold me." (Ps. 
139.) That IS religion somewhat refined 
and has comfort In It, and ethical value. Re- 
ligion as we are now considering It, In the 
words of President Dodge, my honored 
teacher In college, 

*' Is the sense of a good power above us, 
an authority over us, and a goal before us." 



This recognition of a great Superintendent 
has several prizes to give the man that has 
it. Chiefly it saves him from the sense of 
utter chaos in human history. 

In our day we are In touch with all the 
world and Its tumults. This morning. In 
the offices of the great newspapers, they 
know what took place In China yesterday, 
and we shall know to-night. We cannot be 
isolated. Men read history now more than 
they used to read It, and It presents great 
perplexity. Not long since, a professor In 
the University of Pennsylvania discovered 
in the mounds of an ancient Babylonian city, 
hundreds of little earthen tablets on which 



14 RELIGION FOR MEN 

were written, in strange characters, and in 
a strange language, the records of human 
lives centuries ago. Here are public docu- 
ments, and business correspondence, and love 
letters from young men to young maidens. 
Love letters 4,000 years old! bearing testi- 
mony that human love was the same then 
as now. 

These ruins are evidences of a civilization 
in some particulars as good as ours. Here 
are houses furnished with water and drain- 
age. Here are tunnels through which the 
water and drainage pipes run, so they can 
be repaired without digging up the streets 
as we must do. That civilization implies 
toil and ambition, comfort and weariness. 
It had expenses, and taxes, and business 
activity. It meant, as ours does, a medley 
of joy and sorrow. But that great city, and 
its civilization, for 3,000 years dropped out 
of the world's thought. 

Other nations also have risen to promi- 
nence, and fallen to abject unworthiness. 
They grew and became great. They builded 
cities like Babylon; they framed laws that 



RELIGION AND ITS WORTH 15 

were excellent, likes the code of Hammurabi; 
they had a sort of literature and saved it In 
libraries. And then, by causes that we do 
not know, they passed out of sight. Their 
civilization is known only by reason of the 
curious spade of the archaeologist. Not a 
soul for thirty centuries, until the last cen- 
tury, has spoken their language, or read one 
of their tablets. Not a soul claims a blood 
relation with them now. Nineveh, Assyria, 
Damascus, Carthage, Luxor, ancient Rome 
shared to a great degree in the same fate. 
Every thinking reader of their history is led 
to ask, '' Is there any thread of purpose that 
binds these strange catastrophes together? 
Was there left from that dissolving civiliza- 
tion any residuum of goodness or wisdom 
which justifies their having been in the 
world?'' 

These families lived and longed, toiled 
and triumphed for a time, and then passed 
out of sight and thought. What is the mean- 
ing of it all? Is such life worth living? 
That question troubles us. If there is no 
destiny then the ox has the better of us, for 



i6 RELIGION FOR MEN 

he fears not death, and he may do good after 
he dies, — • we may eat him. 

The student of history who has a place 
for God in his thinking regards the whole 
stream of history as moving towards a God- 
appointed destiny. He does not for a mo- 
ment think that he or his fellow-men are the 
sport of uncontrolled forces or that men live 
in vain. We see trees leave out and become 
luxuriant in summer; and in the autumn their 
leaves fall silent on our heads, then rustle 
under our feet, then pass into mold and 
native dust. But we are not perplexed by it 
for we know that each leaf by its summer's 
work has left its twig a little longer, and 
the tree a little larger. Human history has a 
purpose. Neander said in his history of the 
Church, '* I desire to testify to that which 
constitutes the center and goal of history, 
namely the Christian age of the world whose 
dawn already greets us from, afar." 
D'Aubigne, in his history of the Reforma- 
tion, says that he does not enter into rivalry 
with other historians, but he makes an ex- 
ception in favor of the '' principle on which 



RELIGION AND ITS WORTH 17 

his history is founded." Others had strung 
the record of events In order like beads on 
a cord; but it all had no meaning, no message 
to convey. To read it had not much more 
value than a game of solitaire. When one 
had read the whole of it he would say, 
*' Well, what of it all ? It has stated no pur- 
pose ; it has discovered no goal; it has won no 
victory." D'Aubigne wrote to tell the tale 
of God's work in the history of men. The 
chronicles of ancient times were written to 
tell the deeds of the various kings. They 
are called annals. History Is, if properly 
considered and written. The Annals of God. 
The Chinese nation! What a wonder it 
is! For 3,000 years It has been perfecting 
a civilization that in many respects Is better 
than ours. It has learned to obey law, to 
restrain passions, to live In society without 
any large standing army, and no navy until 
modern nations touched It. And now, as a 
rose bud that has been making its beauty and 
fragrance all In secret opens some June 
morning and we say, *' O, the beauty of the 
rose," so this nation, held back by the hand 



i8 RELIGION FOR MEN 

of a power over it, and a destiny ahead of it, 
In this time, when as never before the Chris- 
tian world IS ready to use the opportunity, 
opens its doors to light. The leaven that 
throws off old forms and old superstitions, 
and wants the things of God has been work- 
ing. What deep sense of wonder comes 
when we see this hand of Providence In his- 
tory! Men who do not know God are to 
read In history and learn about Him. That 
gives a meaning to life affairs among men. 
God through them Is working out His pur- 
poses. We see a stately drama on the 
world's stage. Centuries, nations, religions 
more or less correct come on the stage, act 
their part and pass off. But the great drama 
of God goes on. 

Paul wrote that his part In history was 
" to the Intent that now unto the principal- 
ities and powers In heavenly places might be 
made known through the church the mani- 
fold wisdom of God.'' That is, the world is 
a stage on which, for the benefit of the heav- 
enly Intelligences, the grace and glory of God 



RELIGION AND ITS WORTH 19 

are made manifest and illustrated by His 
kindness toward men in Jesus Christ. 

II 

^Another good that comes from this sense 
of God is a protection from the sense of un- 
endurable chaos in individual life. 

We live in what, from some standpoints, 
seems to be a jarring, wrangling conflict of 
forces and agencies. There is sorrow in 
every home. Sadness in every heart. Of 
all the people we meet or see in our streets 
every one Is a victim to some degree, and 
in some way, of sickness or of sin. As Paul, 
quoting the psalmist wrote, '' There is none 
righteous, no not one, they are all gone out 
of the way." Every good we know may 
become an evil. Frugality overdone be- 
comes stinginess, and covetousness. Kind- 
ness untempered with wisdom becomes harm- 
ful. Help to the poor may beggar them. 
Forgiveness without repentance becomes en- 
couragement to sin. Truth-telling without 
discrimination becomes brutality. In the; 



20 RELIGION FOR MEN 

heart of every virtue hides the bacillus of 
sin, which under favoring circumstances saps 
Its vitality. Even religious worships un- 
consciously change themselves Into formal- 
isms and superstitions, and may bind the once 
free souls of men with fetters of bondage 
hard to be borne. We sometimes ask In our 
bewilderment, Is this a good world? Are 
we living In a good order of things? Or is 
this a demonlzed world? 

Has evil won in the horrid feud 
Of ages with the throne? 
Does evil stand on the neck of good 
And rule the world alone? 

And we almost reply, 

There is no good, there is no God, 
And faith is a heartless cheat 
Who bares the back for the deviPs rod 
And scatters thorns for the feet.* 

We seek for some thread to follow that 
will lead us out of the labyrinth of mystery; 
for some point of view from which the tur- 
moil will appear to have a plan and an Inner 
working purpose 1 

♦J. G. Holland in Bitter Siveet. 



RELIGION AND ITS WORTH 21 

But the sense of God gives an assurance 
that through all, and over all, and in all, 
there Is a plan and purpose. The under- 
current of such religion refuses to think that 
the world Is a junketing party, which starts 
out to go nowhere, and has no definite return- 
ing place or time. Or that it is a chaos of 
forces in which the mighty and the less 
mighty move about with no destination. In 
moments of trial we may be tempted to say 
so; but before we do a voice from greater 
depths says, *' No, God is, and God is 
good ! " Farmers have poor crops, but 
they sow again because they think that on 
the whole God reigns. Business men lose, 
but they try again because they think that 
laws of trade remain. Men get into trouble 
and would be despairing but for a deep- 
seated confidence that there is a way out into 
light. Almost unconsciously, but correctly, 
men complete the arch of their thinking with 
the keystone of conviction that God Is, and 
that He Is the rewarder of them that seek 
Him. Many have had similar experiences. 
There have been times when troubles came 



2% RELIGION FOR MENi 

and all looked dark, but they went out in tHe 
morning with a soft sweet song of trust in 
the heart that God is. And that trust 
gave courage. In the dangers that surround 
them men go at best into the darkness. 
Every morning they go to business not know- 
ing what a day may bring forth. Reverses, 
sickness, accidents, betrayed trusts, unlooked- 
for deaths, — all these hover like vultures 
over them, and they know not when some 
one or more will descend. But they gird on 
the armor of faith and go out cheerfully, be- 
cause deep down they have a conviction that 
God reigns and God is good. 

Christian parents hopefully send out their 
sons and daughters into the dangerous world, 
beyond their care or protection. The 
mother of Washington when he was sent out 
to the frontier to fight Indians, putting her 
hand on his shoulder said, " God is our trust. 
To Him I commit you." How sad it would 
be if she could not commit him to the care 
of a God of righteousness! How sad if a 
mother's prayers were but wasted breath 1 
But they have God as a dwelling place. 



RELIGION AND ITS WORTH 23 

III 

Another installment of good is that it saves 
from lonesomeness of unanswered affection. 

A yearning for someone to love us is a 
very noticeable fact in our life. Many a 
poor fellow in a great city finds satisfaction 
in the affections of a dog; — the dog licks 
the hand that cuffs him; and never turns 
state's evidence. Children try to get re- 
sponses from their pets, and look into their 
eyes to see some return of affection. What 
farmer boy never put his arms around the 
neck of his pet cow or horse, and looked long 
into its deep eyes, and was glad to think that 
his love was returned? That desire for af- 
fection is only embryonic in the boy, and 

"When the stern realities of life do clip the wings of 

fancy, 
And the cold storms rack the worn cordage of the heart, 
It breathes a healing essence and a strengthening charm 
Next to the hope of heaven." * 

Man in all the fullness of his powers; in 
moments of solitude, away from the din of 
popular applause, away from the profusion 

♦Mrs. Sigourney. 



24 RELIGION FOR MEN 

of men's praise, stretches the hands upward 
for the approval of some superior being 
whom he can adore. With all his attain- 
ments there Is a cry for some higher person- 
ality in whom he can confide, and into whose 
ears he can pour the woes of his soul, and 
whom he thinks loves him. And when a 
man realizes that a God above cares for him, 
that In any way he bears friendly relations 
to that God, he can walk fearless through 
deserts dark and drear. He *' shall run and 
not be weary, and he shall walk and not 
faint.'' 

How sweet it Is to walk among the trees 
and flowers ; to revel In the sunshine ; to hear 
the singing of birds; and feel that the Author 
of all Is a wondrous person who knows and 
cares for me. There are moments of de- 
light when men praise our efforts. It Is 
sweet to find a human soul that loves with an 
unselfish and loyal affection. But there Is no 
experience In which one's heart thrills with 
such calm delight, such deep and potent joy, 
as when he realizes that God loves him. 

And there are no moments when the soul 



RELIGION AND ITS WORTH 25 

droops so low, and the springs of life's best 
ambitions run so scanty, as when one thinks 
that heaven has no ear to hear, and no eye 
to pity and no hand to help. Hume, one of 
the great English philosophers who had suc- 
ceeded in ridding himself of all that he once 
thought of God, writing to a friend said, " I 
cannot express to you the intense loneliness 
to which my philosophy has brought me.'' 
" The great Companion," said another, " is 
gone from my soul." Religion saves us 
from that loneliness. 

Compare the expressions of individuals 
before recognizing this care of God with 
their feelings after doing so. Here is Paul 
in the 7th of Romans, groaning under the 
fact that he finds In him a law warring 
against his better self. He finds no way of 
escape. He cries out, " O wretched man 
that I am, who will deliver me ? " And then 
as if in his imagination he saw deliverance 
coming, he says, *' I thank God through 
Jesus Christ." (Rom. 8:1.) 

Here is Newman, the cardinal. His 
hymn is said to be his own heart history : 



2'6 RELIGION FOR MEN 

"Lead Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom, 
Lead thou me on; 

The night is dark, and I am far from home; 
Lead thou me on: 

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that thou 
Shouldst lead me on; 

I loved to choose and see my path; but now 
Lead thou me on." 

Contrast this with Darwin's experiences: 
" When I reflect upon the difficulty of con- 
ceiving this wonderful universe as a work of 
chance, I feel compelled to look to a First 
Cause having an intelligent mind in some de- 
gree analogous to that of man, and I deserve 
to be called a theist; but later that conviction 
has become weaker and now (1876) I must 
be content to remain an agnostic." Again 
(1885) he said, *' It often comes over me 
with overwhelming force that this world is 
not made by chance. But at other times it 
seems to go away." 

How different the tone of Sir Humphry 
Davy (1778-1829), *'A firm religious be- 
lief makes life a discipline of goodness; 
creates new hopes when all earthly ones 
vanish and throws over the decay the most 



RELIGION AND ITS WORTH 27 

gorgeous of all lights; awakens life even In 
death and from corruption and decay calls 
up beauty and divinity; makes an instrument 
of torture and shame a ladder of ascent to 
paradise; and far above all combinations of 
earthly hopes calls up the most delightful 
visions of palms and amaranths, the gardens 
of the blest, the security of everlasting joys, 
where the skeptic, and the sensualist view 
only gloom and despair." 

IV 

Another instaTlment is that this confidence 
in God saves our ethical life from weakness 
and degeneration. Or, to put It in another 
way, it gives us moral hack-bone. 

There is a theory of morals which says 
that the thing which gives most happiness, 
and saves us most from pain is right. The 
way to know the right Is to estimate the pain 
or pleasure. There Is much truth In that. 
In many cases we know that the true test of 
conduct Is results. Jesus said we test teach- 
ers by the fruit of their teaching. Probably 
very good results would come to a community 



28 RELIGION FOR MEN 

if all would follow this kind of moral ex- 
pediency. But there would be missing from 
our estimate a certain element which gives 
religious morality a glory that excels all 
others. The man who does right just be- 
cause it is right — just because he thinks God 
wants it done — that man feels a dignity 
which no other man knows. He walks like 
a king, with his head erect and his heart light. 
It may be sometimes difficult to determine 
what is right in the eyes of God, yet there 
are great moral concepts which all men call 
right. And to be reverent, to be truthful, to 
be honest, to be clean, to be loyalto friends, 
to be chlvalric, because these are right — 
that kind of coin passes at full value under 
all moral systems with or without the Deca- 
logue. This is about the same as conscien- 
tiousness. It gives virility to public and to 
private morals. Morality without religious 
sanction must become enervated. If a 
clerk's faithfulness has no reason except that 
you pay him well, then when he can get more 
money by being unfaithful he will do it. If 
any man is honest only because it is the best 



RELIGION AND ITS WORTH 29 

policy, he will be dishonest when It Is policy 
to be so. 

I was once conducted through the chamber 
containing trophies of the government de- 
tective office, until I was tired at the signs of 
so much painstaking rascality. Col. Brooks, 
the chief of the detective service, was my 
companion. I said to him, '' Colonel, I 
should think you would lose your confidence 
in humanity by being constantly In contact 
with rascals." *' Oh, no," said he, *' I never 
had any. Every man has his price. It may 
be money, or ambition, or revenge, but he 
can be bought." I was astonished, for he 
was a Christian man, and I was about to ask 
him what price would buy him, but he spoke 
again, finishing his sentence — " Except the 
religious man. He has something that holds 
him steadfast." That Is true. 

But I should probably be misunderstood 
If I should prolong this list of advantages for 
the man who follows natural religion. And 
I fear I may be If I stop here. I am quite 
sure that some Christian man has already 
begun to think that I am substituting natural 



30 RELIGION FOR MEN: 

for Christian religion. I want, therefore, 
to consider the Christian religion as related 
to this natural religion. Christianity is 
unique. It is the one rriost beautiful blossom 
of natural religion. One cannot study a tree 
thoroughly without studying all of it. One 
cannot know a fruit well unless he knows the 
tree it grew on. The tree on which Chris- 
tian religion grows is natural religion. You 
can have the tree without the fruit but you 
cannot have the fruit without the tree. A 
man may be religious and not be Christian; 
he cannot be Christian and not be religious. 
Socrates was religious but he was not Chris- 
tian for Christ was not made known to him. 
I wish he could have known Jesus. He 
would have said, '' My King, my King." 

All the language of the New Testament 
implies that Christ was a helper for men who 
knew God some and wanted to know him 
more. Jesus himself said to some, '' Ye are 
not of God or ye would believe on me.'* 
That is, men needed to be religious in this 
fundamental way as a £regaration to accegt 
Christ. 



RELIGION AND ITS WORTH 31 

This should lead those of us who have 
taken what we may call the Christian degree 
in religion to have great patience with those 
who have as yet only the first degrees. We 
all came through the same sort of initiation. 
Some of us took all the degrees in a few 
days, others were a long time in getting to 
our present position, but we took the pre- 
liminary ones first. 

And so I would urge men with all my 
powers to yield to the leadings of the natural 
feeling of religion. Yield to the idea that 
God is and that He is good. Cultivate it. 
Follow its impulses. It will be a dwelling 
place for your soul. I wish I could make 
all my readers do that much. It would be to 
their souls like showers upon the mown grass. 
It would make songs break out in the night. 
It would exalt life in all its departments. I 
believe it would lead them to Christ. 

I do not ask men to take my theology, or 
to join my church, though I wish they would. 
But I plead with them to follow their own 
theology; not their philosophy, nor their un- 
beliefs, but that which lies deep down in their 



32 RELIGION FOR MEN 

hearts. Following that light leads to more. 
When the sense of God sweeps over your 
soul as you see the beauties of the world or 
feel the goodness of life, then give thanks 
(Rom. i) ; then pray to your God, — not to 
mine but to yours, — and you will soon find 
a comfort and a shelter which will make you 
understand the psalmist, and make you say 
Amen when he says, " God is our dwelling 
place." In thought of Him you will find 
comfort and shelter. 



THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION 
ABOUT THE DIVINE 



SUGGESTION 

The invisible things of God, since the creation of the 
world are clearly seen, being perceived through the 
things that are made. — Rom. i : 20. 

God, having of old time spoken unto the Fathers in the 
Prophets by divers portions and in divers manners, hath 
at the end of these days spoken unto us in his Son. — Heb. 
i: I. 

O taste and see that the Lord is good. — Ps, 34:8. 



CHAPTER II 

THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION 
ABOUT THE DIVINE 

Religion, says Prof. James, Is a set of 
experiences in the presence of what we think 
of as *' divine." The character then of a 
man's religion is measured by what he thinks 
about his *' divinity." The Japanese who 
pictures his *' divinity " as a great serpent, 
and the man who has Jesus as the '* visible 
image " of his '' divinity " are as far apart 
in their religion as Jesus and the serpent. 
The whole matter hinges upon this idea of 
the divine. 

So it comes about that the sources of 
information about the '' divinity " are 
important. 



The word of Paul was, ^' The invisible 
things of God are clearly seen in the things 

u 



36 RELIGION FOR MEN 

that are madeJ^ The same truth was de- 
clared by the psalmist when he wrote, '' The 
heavens declare the glory of God, and the 
firmament showeth his handiwork. One 
day uttereth speech to another day, and night 
unto night showeth knowledge." (Ps. 19.)] 
That Is, nature is a source of information 
about God. This Is not an arbitrary revela- 
tion, it is perfectly in accord with all that 
we know about one another. Men's con- 
ceptions and characters are revealed through 
their acts. The ancient painters of Ma- 
donnas painted their faces as expressionless 
as the face of a Chinese doll. They have no 
significance except the absence of significance. 
There Is no beauty — no attractiveness. 
The reason was, they had no clear conception 
of what they wanted to portray In their 
minds. Mary, the mother of Jesus, must 
be sinless, and yet human. She must not 
have passion, nor fear, nor undue affection. 
They did not, could not clearly conceive of 
such a woman. So they painted a face of no 
expression. 

The man who wrote the great oratorio of 



SOURCES OF INFORMATION 37 

the Messiah could not have been a small, or 
an irreligious man. He shows that he took 
In the whole sweep of the redemptive work. 
From the prophetic *' Comfort ye my peo- 
ple " on through the story of the birth, and 
the " Behold and see if there be any sorrow 
like unto his sorrow," up to the great Hal- 
lelujah Chorus, and the *' Blessing and honor 
be unto him that sitteth on the throne," the 
author sees and feels the sweetness and the 
majesty of his theme. We know that he was 
a man of sensitive religious spirit, and far- 
reaching, spiritual insight, besides being a 
master of musical science. The invisible 
things of Handel are seen in his work. 

Suppose that in some wilderness of Africa 
we should find a deserted village. In it is a 
house built and furnished, but left for years 
without occupants. And we find that It Is 
built on strong foundations ; the windows are 
square and plumb, the sills In line and level; 
the inside trim is well put In, the material Is 
all good, the joints as well made In the closets 
as In the parlor. We should say the builder 
was not a contractor, driven by a close com- 



38 RELIGION FOR MEN 

petition to skimp his work, but that he de- 
lighted in good work for the sake of the 
goodness of it. The invisible love of thor- 
oughness is manifest in the things he made. 
We go into the kitchen and find every con- 
venience for doing the work quickly and 
easily. We say that man cared for the com- 
fort of the women; the invisible things of 
affection for his wife are manifest in the 
things that he made in the kitchen. We go 
upstairs and find the children's rooms; and 
there are books, and athletic contrivances, 
and musical instruments, and we say the in- 
visible things of intelligent love for children 
are manifest in the things that are made in 
the children's rooms. We find good rooms 
for the help, and we say the invisible things 
of a proper regard for them are seen in the 
provision, made for them. We study the 
surroundings, and find that walks and flowers 
and shade have been provided, and we say 
the invisible love of landscape is manifest in 
the things that are made in the fields. So 
we could write a pretty fair estimate of him 
who in that place built that house, and we 



SOURCES OF INFORMATION 39 

should know for a certainty that no man- 
eating savage built it, but some intelligent 
man from a civilized country. 

So is it with the Maker of heaven and 
earth. What sort of a person He is we can 
learn in quite a full manner by considering 
what He has made. Let us note some of 
His works. He has made us, and we are 
persons, that is, we are self-conscious beings, 
having intelligence, will, affections, and 
^' power to bring things to pass.'* There- 
fore God is a personal being, for it is Incon- 
ceivable that the creator be less than his 
creations. Heaven and earth then, are filled 
with the oversight, and insight of One who 
has purposes, and is " bringing things to 
pass." 

And He is a loving being. Someone has 
said that nature has no signs of affection, but 
only tokens of the unswerving, merciless 
forces of nature which grind to powder all 
that get in their way. But what is more 
affectionate than the love and loyalty of the 
birds for their young? How industrious 
they are ! Watch the work of the robin to 



40 RELIGION FOR MEN 

fill the hungry mouths of her young. Or 
listen to the chatter of the sparrows, awake 
and at work before we are up. He that 
made such shall not He love His creatures? 

And forgiveness, — >" the great gospel 
blessing" — how nature heals the wounds 
we make and, within limits, forgives our sins 
against her laws ! 

And prayer — How we are taught to 
make our legitimate petitions, in a legitimate 
way, and the forces of earth, air and sky 
spring with alacrity to answer them with 
grain and flower and fruit! 

Does not nature teach us resurrection of 
the dead? The grass that turns brown in 
autumn comes forth in spring from the same 
root, clad in the green of summer. The 
wheat that is put into the ground '' dies," but 
It lives again, not as a new creation, but as 
the extension of the life of the seed, and 
" every seed after Its kind." Does a man 
*' die " and finish his existence? Or does he, 
like the grass and the wheat, have some 
power to out-live the winter of old age and 
to conquer decay, that he may appear again? 



SOURCES OF INFORMATION 41 

Surely man is not without a strong suggestion 
in nature that " death does not end all." 

True these nature lessons are not very 
definite nor unmistakable. None of them is 
indisputable by a man who wants disputation, 
but they furnish a quiet, constant suggestion 
about the Power above us and the goal be- 
fore us. 

So we say : Let man seelc to know the God 
of nature, cultivate the habit of seeing the 
beneficent side of creation and of the Creator, 
and he shall not be lost in the sense of 
** boundless power and inaccessible majesty,'' 
but rather shall he find it true that 

" Nature has a voice of gladness, and a smile, 
And eloquence of beauty; and she glides 
Into his darker musings with a mild 
And gentle sympathy that steals away 
Their sharpness ere he is aware." 



II 

While this listening to the voice of nature 
has great value, the nations of the world have 
not discovered in it full satisfaction of their 
hunger for knowledge about the divine. 



42 RELIGION FOR MEN 

The Greeks and Romans gathered the idea 
of personality. They saw that there must 
be in the divine all that is essential In men, 
but the tenderer, affectionate qualities they 
overlooked. Back of all their mythology 
they conceived of Zeus, or Jupiter as one 
who, though he was often opposed, and irri- 
tated, by the minor divinities, was able al- 
ways, when he was thoroughly aroused, to 
outwit, and outdo all his opposers. He was 
almighty and all-knowing; but the adjective 
all-merciful did not belong to him. He had 
his friends but they were few. So the best 
of men needed some revelation. 

The Bible is to us the source of more def- 
inite information. It brings to us a clear- 
ness and definiteness of knowledge which the 
book of nature does not furnish. The char- 
acter of God may be from nature quite 
clearly inferred, but the plans of God are not 
written in that book. 

The Bible records revelations of various 
things. Things were told to men of old 
which they could not have discovered from 
the . most reverent study of nature. The 



SOURCES OF INFORMATION 43 

moral teaching of the Bible may be called 
the fruit of the tree of nature. It is nour- 
ished by it, but it has elements different from 
it. We could have the tree without the 
fruit; but we could not have the fruit with- 
out the tree. In the Bible we get both the 
statement of what God would do, and the 
record of how it would be done. God's 
plans, and His methods are found here — 
we get a much fuller knowledge of Him. 
There is less inference, and more concrete- 
ness — nature would not tell us about one 
godly family, and how they lived and grew. 
We could not learn from the study of flowers 
how righteousness, and unrighteousness work 
out in individual or society life. No hint 
comes in nature that such an one as Jesus 
would come into human history and be so 
mighty a leaven to change the character of 
human ideals. How does He feel toward 
us? What does He have in mind concern- 
ing us? Those are questions about vital 
things in our religion. 

The Bible is calculated to give us that in- 
formation — its great value is in its picture 



44 RELIGION FOR MEN 

of God. As a history of men and things it 
is a valuable book. It Is old, and reliable, 
and intelligent. But it was not written to 
be a history as men write history. It tells 
about great men and does not tell whence 
they came or where they went; they are men- 
tioned only as they contributed to something 
greater. It mentions ancient nations, but it 
only tells of them when they affected Israel. 
But it gives knowledge of God, and our duty 
to Him very fully. As Paul wrote, the 
Scriptures are given that the " man of God 
may be thoroughly furnished unto all good 
works." It is a wonderful book for that 
very purpose. If your friend in a distant 
city desires to make you acquainted with his 
wife he sends to you a series of photographs. 
One is a front view, another a profile; one 
with a serious expression and another with 
a smile. These are accompanied with re- 
ports of her sayings, and doings. In this 
way you get a pretty accurate idea of her 
looks. So in the Bible we have many views 
of Him, and these combined, make us ac- 
quainted with Him; — e. g., the first Psalm 



SOURCES OF INFORMATION 45; 

shows us what the writer thought of the man 
whose " delight Is In the law of the Lord," 
and who "meditates In It day and night." — > 
" Whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.^' 
Jsalah 49:15-16 tells us what He thinks 
about the company of those who serve Him 
•■ — " Can a woman forget her sucking child, 
that she should not have compassion on the 
son of her womb? Yea, these may forget 
yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have 
graven thee upon the palms of my hands." 
What care does He have for the humble be- 
liever In Jesus? "Take heed that ye de- 
spise not one of these little ones for I say 
unto you that In heaven their angels do al- 
ways behold the face of my Father which 
Is In heaven." (Matt. 18:10.) What Is 
His attitude towards us when we have gone 
astray from the right way? Read Luke 15, 
and see how He heaps up as It were Illustra- 
tions to show the unfailing sense of loss at 
our wanderings, and His joy at our return. 
But the portrait Is not without signs of moral 
severity of character. He Is angry at pre- 
tense, as shown in his repeated warnings 



46 RELIGION FOR MEN 

against hypocrisy. (Matt 23:23-29.')] 
He is disgusted at luke*warmness of loyalty 
to the right. (Rev. 3:14,15.) He con- 
demns the man who, in his luxurious wealth, 
forgets the poor. (Luke 16: 19-31.) He 
recognizes the worthlessness of orthodox 
thinking unless coupled with orthodox living. 
(Luke 10:30-37.) He declines to forgive 
the unforgiving. (Matt. 6: 14, 15.) So 
as with stroke after stroke, skillfully and 
patiently, the painter brings out life likeness 
in the portrait, Jesus* words portray the char- 
acter of God. 

And there is no less definiteness in the 
teaching about our duties. All classes of 
men find here the guiding principles that are 
to be adopted in life. 

And the destiny that awaits us is not over- 
looked. '^We shall be like Christ." (I 
John 3:2.) *' We are being transformed in- 
to his image.'* (II Cor. 3:18.) *' He will 
change our bodies like unto the body of his 
glory." (Phil. 3:21.) '* This mortal shall 
put on immortality." (I Cor. 15:53.) 
And not only individuals are to be redeemed, 



SOURCES OF INFORMATION 47 

but society as a whole will be renewed. For 
His *' kingdom is to come on earth, as in 
heaven." *' They shall not hurt nor destroy 
in all my holy mountain.'* (Is. 11:9.) 
" Every tongue shall confess that Jesus 
Christ is Lord." (Phil. 2:11.) And 
there is to be a judgment — " Every one shall 
confess to God." (Rom. 14:11.) ''The 
revelation of the righteous judgment of 
God." (Rom. 2:5.) Such is the fullness 
of information about the overruling Power 
and Authority with whom we have to do. 

The Bible should be read not chiefly to 
get replies to curious questionings, nor to get 
material for some system of theology; but 
to get acquainted with our heavenly Father 
■ — your heavenly Father. 

Prof. Huxley (who will not be thought 
to have been prejudiced in favor of the 
Bible) said, "I advise my friends to drink 
deeply from the fountain itself, for the Bible 
contains in itself the antidote for three- 
fourths of the foolishness that is said about 
it." Dr. Wm. N. Clarke wrote, " The fact 
cannot be destroyed that this book brings us 



r^g RELIGION FOR MEN 

our knowledge of Jesus, and brings us our 
best knowledge of God and the relations that 
we sustain to Him. Intelligent study sets 
this fact out in clearer and stronger light." 
Men, fathers, can you not find a place to 
read diis great source of information more 
yourselves, and more with your families? 
Is it not worth while to get fresh and abun- 
dant views of your Creator's thought about 
•jouf Its reading will correct and complete 
your idea of God. You have made it from 
other sources; remake it from this source. 
Sort and sift and select from it what pictures 
Him. Let the Scriptures start you in an ex- 
perience that sets you before the God of 
Grace in an " amazing beatific tranquillity," 
as Dr. Bushnell described it. 

Ill 

However much satisfaction the Bible may 
give us over and above the teachings of 
nature, there yet remains a desire for some- 
thing beyond. It is yet second-hand to us. 
It is only a picture. We want the knowledge 
that comes from acquaintance. Can we have 



SOURCES OF INFORMATION 49 

that? .We think of the woman at the well 
of Jacob, and the Inhabitants of the near-by- 
village. They said, " Now we believe not 
because of what you told us but because we 
have seen him ourselves.'* XJ^hn 4.)] 
We want to know God for ourselves. Ex- 
perience must teach us. I would write 
thoughtfully here, and carefully, because it 
is a difficult subject. We must get out of 
the physical realm. We speak about seeing 
God and hearing Him and walking with 
Him, and knowing Him, but all the time we 
remember that it is an inner seeing and hear- 
ing and walking. These things of which the 
Bible speaks are fully known by us only when 
we have experienced them. A friend o£ 
mine used to say that he thought he never 
knew a passage of the Bible until he had 
practised it. It is possible to experience 
many things that are real acquaintances with 
God, — that is with the Power above and the 
Authority over us. 

Man may know God's forgiveness. 
Sometimes we have such a sense of our 
wrongdoing that life loses its joy. We are 



so RELIGION FOR MEN 

like the publican who dared not lift up his 
face to heaven. And we go to Him in secret 
prayer. We confess the whole business. 
We ask for forgiveness and we come away 
from that place with a light heart. We look 
up. We see the sun. A new song is put 
in our mouth. 

Dr. Finney, once an unbelieving lawyer, 
then a great evangelist, afterwards President 
of Oberlin College, said that once in his life 
he went into the woods to think out his own 
problem of religion. And after a long 
struggle he in his soul submitted to God, and 
when he came out of the woods the whole 
world seemed to him to be new. The clouds 
looked more beautiful, the birds sang more 
sweetly. Now he knew what the Bible 
meant when it said, " I will put a new song 
into your mouth.'' 

Henry Ward Beecher said (at the with- 
drawal from the Congregational Association, 
1882), " There was a time when I knew all 
the doctrines like a row of pins on a paper 
of pins. I knew them as a soldier knows his 
weapons, and by the time I got away from 



SOURCES OF INFORMATION 51 

the seminary I was sick — no tongue can tell 
how sick of the whole medley. And then 
on one memorable day, whose almost every 
cloud I can remember, whose high sun, and 
glowing firmament and waving trees are vivid 
yet, there arose before me, as if an angel had 
descended, a revelation of Christ as being 
God because He knew how to love a sinner. 
Not that He would love me when I was true 
and perfect, but because I was so wretched 
that I should die If He did not give Himself 
to me. Before that thought of God I bowed 
down in my soul, and from that hour to this 
It has been my very life to love and serve the 
all-helping and all-pitiful God." 

It must be remembered that the Bible is 
largely a record of human experience. Its 
chapters begin not In a theory but in facts 
of life, and when a man has the facts he sees 
how true the record Is. Many of Paul's 
words seem extravagant to us, but It Is due 
to our spiritual Inexperience; when we have 
come to his experience, they will be common- 
place statements. 

But the great fact is that the fountain of 



52 RELIGION FOR MEN 

experience Is open to all. You can know for. 
yourself whether the Scripture portraits are 
correct. The psalmist said, '' O taste and 
see that the Lord is good." (Ps. 34:8.)' 
Philip said to Nathanael, *' Come and see." 
Jesus said, *' If any man Is willing to do His 
will, he shall know whether the doctrine 
comes from God." All other knowledge 
about God takes rank below this personal ex- 
perience of His power in us. When a man 
has brought his unkind speech to God, and 
has found help to be kind; when he has 
prayed for bitterness towards an enemy to 
be removed, and his heart has become calm 
and sweet; when he has rebelled against his 
own lot, but In response to his prayers he 
becomes resigned to It: then he knows God 
as a " helper," a " strong tower," a 
'' refuge," and then he has a religion that 
satisfies his soul. When he has gone down 
Into the valley where the shadow of death 
makes It chill and dark, but has been held, 
and helped, he knows what the psalmist 
wrote about — *^ Thy rod and thy staff they 
comfort me." '(Ps. 23.)' 



SOURCES OF INFORMATION SS 

Mr. Moody used to mark his Bible in the 
margin opposite some verses " T. P." which 
meant '' tried and proven." Such passages 
are beyond the reach of critics, or theological 
systems, or church boundaries. They are 
** sure and steadfast." So I urge you to 
learn of your God through experience. Use 
the Bible as a manual of living. Do not 
think of it as old-fashioned, or out-grown 
until you have tried it fairly. When you 
have learned God in that way you will walk 
under the sun, or amid the clouds, with calm, 
joyous hearts. Then you can understand 
the saying — ''To know God and His Son 
Jesus Christ is life eternal." You will be 
tasting of it continually. 

Prayer. — Help us our Father to see 
Thee. Open our eyes that we may behold 
wondrous things In Thy Law. May all 
nature speak to us more and more of Thy 
glory. May the heavens declare it to us, 
and the earth confirm the testimony. But 
above all may we know Thee by experience. 
May we have victory over ourselves and thus 
know Thee as our Saviour God. 



THE SORROWS OF IRRELIGION 
— THEIR SOURCE 



SUGGESTION 

Why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well is 
there not a lifting up? And if thou doest not well, sin 
lieth at the door, and to thee is his desire, and do thou 
rule over him. — Gen. 4:6. 

Many terms of the gospel have in them an element of 
metaphor and parable. Sometimes these terms become 
veils that hide the truth. It would be unfortunate if one 
should cling to the veil and forget the truth it hides. 

— Prof. Ramsay. 



CHAPTER III 

THE SORROWS OF IRRELIGION — • 
THEIR SOURCE 

In our first chapter we spoke of the com- 
fort there is in having a trustful and obedient 
spirit toward what we think of as divine. 
In the second we noticed that the sources of 
knowledge about the divine One are abun- 
dant and within our reach. It follows then 
that if we do not have the comfort of religion 
the fault lies in ourselves In some way. We 
do not say that the sorrows of poverty are 
due to our fault, nor that the pains of ill 
health are avoidable by us all. But the sor- 
rows of irreligion; those uncomfortable feel- 
ings of the mind; those self-accusations; those 
stings of conscience that rob life of its best 
joys, and sap its best energies — all such are 
due to something in ourselves. 

This is an old subject. The men that In 

!5JJ 



58 RELIGION FOR MEN 

the centuries past wrote the book of Genesis 
met It. They were meditative students of 
human experience, and endeavored also to 
give help to mankind in their struggle for 
comfort. And they discovered the root of 
the difficulty. Their Idea about It is con- 
tained In the passage printed as the sugges- 
tion of this chapter. It does not for our pur- 
pose matter whether the story Is actual his- 
tory, or whether It was a pedagogical device, 
like the parables of Jesus, conveying Instruc- 
tion and fixing In memory the truth about 
our discomforts. It contains In crystal form- 
fundamental facts of our life. Let us there- 
fore think Into the heart of It as a typical 
case. 



The first fact of the narrative is that Cain 
was out of sorts with the divine One, and 
was in deep discomfort. The sense of a 
good power above was gone from his heart. 
To use the com.mon phrase he ^' did not en- 
joy religion." But the reason he did not 
enjoy It was not because It is not enjoyable. 



SORROWS OF IRRELIGION 59 

but because he was out of the article. His 
countenance was fallen. His feelings showed 
in his face; long-faced, glum-faced, sour- 
faced. Life had lost its joy for him. If 
someone had asked him if life was worth 
living he would have said, *' No! " 

The permanent truth is: To he '' out of 
sorts'' with the good Power above us is to 
he without comfort of the deeper kind. 
When a man knows In himself that he is not 
doing as well as the good Power appoints 
him; that he is not square in business, not 
honorable in politics, not kind to his family, 
not pure in his thoughts, not charitable In 
his judgments; when his conscience calls him 
to book as it sometimes does and makes him 
shrink from looking himself in the glass, then 
I say, his countenance falls. 

Go out among men who are doing wrong 
knowingly and you see no calm faces. 
There are often faces excited over ambi- 
tions or over successes; but more often sad, 
anxious, sour faces. We listen for some 
songs of a high moral tone, having joy in 
them, but they never come. Such folk do 



€o QRELIGION FOR MEN 

not sing except the light, mocking, or sen- 
sual songs. The countenances of a great 
part of the irreligious people of the world 
are ** fallen." God is not to them a pleas- 
ant thought. We can approach them in con- 
versation about the weather, and the crops, 
and business, and sometimes about politics, 
but the most careful and delicate may not in- 
trude the subject of religion without the risk 
of offending them. 

One would think that if we were in a home- 
like place, guests where good food and com- 
fort was provided for us, and should get 
together on the porch after dinner in the 
cool of the evening, no more appropriate 
and acceptable topic for a few words of con- 
versation could be found than the generous 
and kindly spirit of our benefactor, and the 
excellencies of the hostess. But here in this 
*' world-boarding-house," in which we live 
as the common recipients of our heavenly 
Father's kindness. His name must not be 
mentioned. A hush comes over the company 
if someone does mention it. Their counte- 
nances fall and they wish *' that fellow would 



SORROWS OF IRRELIGION 6i 

let the subject of religion alone." I am 
not speaking about the discussion of opinions, 
but concerning words of praise and appre- 
ciation of God's care and wisdom. 



II 

It is not the divine will that we remain 
thus sad. The searching question is, " Why 
is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest 
well is there not a lifting up? " 

That is the same as saying that it is not 
necessary nor according to our heavenly 
Father's will that we should fear and shrink 
from Him. We are not made to be slaves 
of God. Hear how the best part of the 
Old Testament folk spoke of Him. Put 
your ear to the Psalms and listen. 

'' The Lord is my light and my salvation, 
of whom shall I be afraid?" 

" I will bless the Lord at all times, His 
praise shall continually be in my mouth. O 
magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt 
His name together." 

" Surely God is good to Israel." 



62 RELIGION FOR MEN 

" Sing unto the Lord a new song. Sing 
unto the Lord all the earth." 

" Bless the Lord O my soul, and forget 
not all His benefits. Bless the Lord all His 
works in all the places of His dominion." 

Isaiah 55:12: ''Ye shall go out with 
joy and be led forth with praise. The moun- 
tains and the hills shall break forth before 
you into singing, and all the trees of the field 
shall clap their hands." 

*' Good tidings of great joy " was the an- 
nouncement that came at His birth. 

Isaiah 61 : '' The Lord hath sent me to 
bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim lib- 
erty to the captives, to comfort all that mourn, 
to give them a garland in place of ashes, the 
oil of joy in the place of mourning, and the 
garment of praise for the spirit of heavi- 
ness." 

And Jesus said in the little church at 
Nazareth after he had read these words from 
Isaiah, " This day is this Scripture fulfilled 
in your eyes." 

All these men represent the best religious 
life of their times, and they all felt that It 



SORROWS OF IRRELIGION 63 

was right to rejoice before God. They did 
not always do It; but they always felt that 
they were not right when they did not do It, 

And this is not a mere sentimental phase 
of the New Testament; it Is a fundamental 
teaching of the New Testament that God 
has this specifically in mind. He said to the 
Jews, '* If ye continue in my word ye shall 
know the truth and the truth shall make you 
freeJ' They replied, *' We are free." He 
said, ** He that sins is in bondage, but if I 
make you free you shall be free Indeed.'* 

And then Paul comes along and teaches 
that we do not receive the '' spirit of bondage 
to fear," but the spirit of *' adoption," which 
makes us call God our Father, — helps us 
to begin our prayers that way. It was not 
Jesus' thought to lead a lot of cringing cap- 
tives, but free souls who stay with Him for 
love's sake. As the great missionary Zln- 
zendorf said, *' I am a captive chained to 
the chariot of Jesus, but chained with chains 
of love." We are not left to pray as Solo- 
mon did, " The Lord said that he would 
dwell In thick darkness." And then he went 



64 RELIGION FOR MENi 

on to remind God of His promises and urge 
Him not to break them, and to plead with 
Him not to turn a deaf ear to the prayers 
of His people, that they might offer in the 
temple ; as if he was afraid that God would 
not hear and help. I am not saying that 
such prayer was not acceptable. It was, by 
reason of the faith that was in it. But it 
was not the kind of prayer we are taught to 
offer, and it reads to the instructed Chris- 
tian almost like a reflection on God. 

So to men and women who may have had 
that frame of mind which makes them want to 
lift up their faces to God, and fills them with 
a thrill of gladness when they think of Him 
— and have lost it' — to them, I say, come 
the words, *' Is there not a lifting up ? 
There is an experience better than that, and 
you can have it. These discomforts of your 
irreligion are not necessarily permanent.'' 
I am inclined to think that even the true 
doctrine of sin may be stated in such a way 
as to do harm. Many Christians seem to 
think it is a sort of pious duty to call them- 
selves hard names, ^and to say, we are 



SORROWS OF IRRELIGION 65^ 

** worms," and *' totally depraved." But 
the psalmist said we are '' made a little lower 
than the angels," and *' God's works are put 
under our hands." Jesus assumed that our 
nature is in God's Image. And we are to be 
changed in body Into Christ's glorious Image. 
Because of this are we to think a buoyant 
spirit is a sign of something wrong? The old 
prophet said, " Why do you bow down your 
head like a bulrush ? " It may be true that 
we are properly sad oyer our faults. The 
point I want to make Is that we are not the 
more pleasing to God because of our crest- 
fallen state. There Is a way for you to come 
Into a joyous, open-faced relation to God. 
You can come where It will be a pleasure to 
speak of Him. You can come where the sun, 
moon and stars will awaken feelings of glad- 
ness. The heavens will declare to you the 
glory of God, and the firmament show you 
His handiwork. You will think of the way 
He has led you with thankfulness. You will 
greet the Sabbath day as the morning birds 
greet the sunrise. Yea, though you walk 
through the valley of the shadow of death, 



66 RELIGION FOR MEN 

you win fear no evil, for the protecting rod, 
and the supporting staff of God will be there 
to comfort you. 

m 

'If we 2d not get this " lifting up '^ some- 
thing in us lieth at the door. 

Let us consider this enemy of our peace 
which is thus charged with the responsibility 
of our long-facedness. Something ails al- 
most everybody and everything. As the dip- 
lomatic men say, *' There is something to be 
desired in all our affairs." There is a 
'* worm in the bud " of all our roses. The 
pleasure of experience falls short of the ex- 
pectations. The goods delivered in life are 
often below the sample of expectation. 

When we turn to examine our part of this 
condition we blame ourselves for a large part 
of It. We were not as wise as we ought 
to have been. We did not foresee clearly. 
We did not follow the best voice In us. So 
trouble came and we blame ourselves for It. 
Along with this Is the feeling that others 
blame us for it. We are conscious of com- 



SORROWS OF IRRELIGION 67 

ing short of being and of doing what the 
common public expectation looks for. Just 
as we blame others, so we feel that others 
blame us. Sometimes unjustly, but In the 
main justly. So in the common public meas- 
urement we are deficient. Not more than 
fourteen ounces to the pound at best, perhaps 
eight will cover it all. It is a rare man who 
does not in his soul feel that he sometimes 
comes short of the public requirement in some 
things, and who does not feel that the public 
standard condemns him as a " come-shorter " 
or worse, a transgressor. And when we get 
alone with our God and put ourselves In im- 
agination where His eye searches through and 
through our naked spirits, reading all our 
motives, and knowing all our thoughts, then 
we understand what the psalmist meant when 
he cried, " Create In me a clean heart and 
renew a right spirit within me." 

It is not *' bad luck " that makes It, — luck 
Is the old word for " providence." In Tyn- 
dale's translation of the Bible in 1625, where 
our book reads, " Joseph prospered for the 
Lord was with him," he translated It, " Jo- 



68 RELIGION FOR MEN 

seph prospered for he was a lucky fellow/' 
that IS, God favored him. So bad luck 
would mean " God is against me " ; and that 
is not true. 

And It is not due to circumstances. Any 
man who has been in the world knows that 
circumstances may put great hindrances in 
the way of righteous conduct, and we all 
learn to take them into account in estimating 
the quality of conduct. But yet experi- 
ence shows us that, for most people, at 
least, there are no circumstances that are nec- 
essarily fatal to a comfortable religious life. 
There are no valleys so dark that the sun 
of divine presence has not reached them' 
with light. No sorrows that divine consola- 
tion has not alleviated. No temptations 
from which a way of escape has not been 

found. -.-/.:^-:.:--;^::- : 

And it is not because we are in the imma- 
ture state ; not yet far enough along to have 
comfort. I know that as we do not expect 
the beauty and fragrance of a rose while in 
the bud state, so we do not expect the mature 
graces of Christian life in the young. No 



1 



SORROWS OF IRRELIGION 69 

doubt we shall know more of God's good- 
ness ten years from now than we do to-day, 
and we shall learn more about the ways of 
sin, and the weakness of humanity than we 
do now. But we may now have peace and 
comfort before the thought of God. 

No, It is not these things, but it is sin that 
lieth at the door. 

IV 

What, then, is this sin which is charged 
with so great offense? The story pictures 
a great beast crouching outside the door to 
spring upon us when we go out. But we 
may not press the figure of speech too far. 
Sin is not something apart from ourselves. 
We may not lay our faults upon Satan. 
Poor Satan ! he has a hard time enough with- 
out loading him with our faults. '' Temp- 
tation," said James, is when we are " drawn 
away with our own lusts, and when lust hath 
conceived, it bringeth forth sin, and sin when 
It is finished bringeth forth death." '^ 

The thing that is most impressive about 
this matter is that it exists everywhere among 



70 RELIGION FOR MEN 

men. Read what all the ancient books say 
and we find it. Go to whatever people you 
please and you find in the language, and in 
the laws, and in the religions evidence that 
they all had to reckon with SIN. 

Sometimes they dealt with it as we might 
think very foolishly, and sometimes very 
leniently. It was too often condoned but 
always condemned. It was always regarded 
as a ground for some sort of penalty. It 
always stole some of the sweetness out of 
life. It always called for a mighty remedy. 
Every ancient temple and altar will tell us 
that story. 

And we find further that it does not con- 
sist in any particular class of deeds; for what 
some have called sins, others have called vir- 
tues. Just as what we call life makes grass, 
and flowers, and fruit, and yet is not itself 
any one of these but is in them all, so this 
sin takes a thousand forms and shows its 
presence in a thouand ways, but yet It is not 
itself any one of them. It comes into all 
lives at times. It makes visits too frequent, 
and stays too long each time. And how 



SORROWS OF IRRELIGION 71 

manifold expression it has had in each of 
us ! Different in each from its work in any- 
body else, and yet from the same root It all 
grew. 

You see that men are not long-faced and 
sad-hearted because the minister says they 
ought to be so, nor because the Bible says 
they ought to be, but because they — we — 
have this something In us which leads us to 
do that which we condemn ourselves for do- 
ing. The very day that we begin to think 
honestly about ourselves and the naked facts 
of life, we know that '' Sin lieth at the door " 
In this matter of irreligion, this lack of God 
In our consciousness. We go to business and 
this is hovering about us. We go home 
from business and It enters to mar our com- 
fort in the sacred precincts of our family. 
We go to the church and it Injects a minor key 
into our songs and a plaintive tone Into our 
prayers. We go Into our closet to pray and 
It lays its hand on our head when we would 
lift our faces to our heavenly Father with 
gladness, and bows them down like a bul- 
rush, and when we would say, *' I thank 



72 RELIGION FOR MEN 

Thee," it makes us say, " O God, forgive 
me." Even the most saintly of men and 
women who through Christ go triumphantly 
into heaven, say as they go, " I go a sinner 
saved by grace." 

Such a thing needs further exploration. 
When we examine it we find that the first 
source of this trouble is in a too exalted 
self; self above God; self-comfort above our 
neighbor's comfort. For example, if a man 
cheats in business he does it to get more for 
himself. If some woman misrepresents an- 
other she gains a temporary pleasure by it. 
The boy who hurts another does it because, 
for the time, he puts his pleasure above the 
other boy's comfort. In the larger circles 
of life the same is true. If any minister goes 
wrong he first puts a selfish aim uppermost. 
If any congressman has failed in duty, I 
do not say in judgment, it is because he sold 
out his duty for some personal temporary 
advantage. In church someone wants his 
own way more than he wants peace. The 
subtle insinuating influences of this unduly ex- 
alted self are the constant forces with which 



SORROWS OF IRRELIGION 73 

we contend, and the source of all our wrong- 
doing to one another. Given that sort of 
self exaltation you can foretell all the other 
evils of life. 

So when we seek to overcome the evil we 
shall not succeed by trimming and pruning 
our lives, but by getting at the very root of 
the trouble. 

The Saviour was truly the great soul phy- 
sician. He could diagnose a case correctly, 
and prescribe effectively. He said, '' Deny 
thyself, take up thy cross and follow me.'* 
He put His finger on the sore spot. Again, 
He said the remedy for the whole of these 
troubles so !far as man with man is con- 
cerned is, " Do unto others as you would that 
they should do to you." Put the other man 
on a level with yourself. Pull this exalted 
self down to where the other man lives. Let 
self get down from the place It has usurped 
and let the neighbor sit with him In the throne 
of life. In the language of business '' live 
and let live." In trade not to want all the 
profit. In society not to want all the hon- 
ors. Two little boys were trying to ride a 



74 RELIGION FOR MEN 

rocking horse. It was too small for both 
of them. One of them said to the other, 
*' Don't you think that if one of us should 
get off, / could ride better?" That Is the 
philosophy of self. '' Don't you think if 
one of us should go out of business, I could 
make more money? " " Don't you think if 
one of us should withdraw, my candidacy 
would have a better showing?" "Don't 
you think that if one of us would yield I 
would feel better? " We smile at that ver- 
sion of it, but is that not a good translation 
of the idea? 

And the remedy in these cases is for us to 
get off our half of the time. This undue 
exalting of self above others Is the near 
source of our being out of joint with God, 
because He has made the world for a dif- 
ferent sort of adjustment. 

The philosopher John Mill said he thought 
that love might be In the moral world 
something analogous to the attraction of 
gravity In the material world. A sort of 
force which holds it all In order, and makes 
the spheres move in harmony. How love 



SORROWS OF IRRELIGION 75 

always regulates the family, and the school, 
and the church! It will regulate the world 
as well when It is brought to bear on It. 
And if a man objects to love he exalts himself 
above others and shows sin again. It Is 
God's way that men shall love one another. 
To exalt self against others Is therefore to 
exalt self against the spiritual law of gravity, 
and against God. That Is SIN. 



^^ Do thou rule over himJ' 

There is a tone of hope for us all In that. 
It sounds as if we could, if we put ourselves 
into the case earnestly, make ourselves right 
with God again. I would emphasize this 
strongly because we so easily fall Into the 
habit of thinking, *' I could not help it." I 
am not at all saying that we are sufficient of 
ourselves to help It, but we are never left to 
ourselves In this matter. God is always 
waiting to help us. What He says here and 
everywhere Is that we can be right with our 
God If we will try. There is a *' lifting up " 
for every down-hearted man; he may find 



76 RELIGION FOR MEN 

peace with God, and have victory over sin, 
I do not say that sin will be annihilated and 
that it will never more disturb his life; but 
I say that he need not to be a servant of sin. 
But It does require resolution and effort. 
The spirit this story would infuse into us is 
one that says, '' I will rule over the sin," 
and that means, *' I will rule over selfishness, 
and love my neighbor. I will enthrone God 
in my heart." 

Mr. Ruskin somewhere expressed his Idea 
that a man who was enthusiastic in sin was 
more of a man as a man, and more of a suc- 
cess as a man, than he who is indifferently in- 
terested in righteousness. And the Scripture 
says as the voice of God, '* I would thou wert 
cold or hot. So then because thou art luke- 
warm and neither cold nor hot, I will spew 
thee out of my mouth." — (Rev. 3:16.) 
Our story calls for downright earnestness in 
this matter. We can blame none but our- 
selves if we stay in the long-faced, sad- 
hearted, unreconciled state of mind toward 
God and our fellow-man. *' O taste and see 



SORROWS OF IRRELIGION 77 

that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man 
that trusteth in him.'' {Fs. 34.) 

If there be some reader that feels himself 
estranged from God, and the countenance of 
his heart is fallen, we say there is every in- 
ducement for him to have a '' lifting up." 
God is waiting to help. Let him summon 
all his resolution, and say, like the Prodigal 
son, *' I will arise and go to my Father." 
How many countenances have been glad- 
dened by that resolution ! It is simple ; it is 
not hard to understand. But it calls for de- 
termination. *' Sin croucheth like a lion at 
the door, and to thee is his desire, and do 
thou RULE OVER him." 

We have information about It. 

We have exhortation to do It. 

We have cooperation of God in it. 

What we need Is resolution to undertake it. 
We repeat It. ** O taste and see that the 
Lord is good. Blessed are all they that trust 
In Him." 

Prayer. — ^Lord Jesus we pray Thee to help 
us to find In our own lives the root of anything 



7'8 RELIGION FOR MEN 

that hides Thy face from us, and shuts out 
peace from our hearts. And help us with 
a determined mind, and an obedient spirit 
to put away every weight and every sin, and 
have the *' lifting up " of heart and counte- 
nance that Is worthy of us and of Thee. 



GOD'S INTEREST IN OUR 
RELIGION 



SUGGESTION 

For God so loved the world that he gave his only be- 
gotten son, that whosoever believeth on him should not 
perish but have eternal life. For God sent not his son 
into the world to judge the world, but that the world 
should be saved through him. — John 3:16, 17. 



CHAPTER IV 

god's interest in our religion 

We sometimes hear it said that a man 
cannot do business now and be a Christian. 
I am not In business, and probably do not 
know all the trials of a business man, but I 
do not believe the statement is true of legiti- 
mate business. Religion, as we are thinking 
of it, is the sense of harmony with God in 
life. But life is only the succession of events 
that come to us. The great majority of men 
are in business of some sort. The events 
that come to you are business events; that is 
your life. If you cannot have a sense of 
harmony with God in business, then you can- 
not have it in life, and it is not worth any- 
thing. 

We always come to the verse of Scripture 
quoted on the opposite page to this with a 
feeling that this is the place where the foun- 

8i 



82 RELIGION FOR MEN 

tains of our emotional life will be opened 
afresh. As we begin to turn toward it in 
our Bibles we begin to feel that softening 
of heart which comes when we are going to 
some place of tender sorrow. And far be 
It from any of us to become callous to that 
influence. The feeling life is the fountain 
of our will power. In the last analysis we 
must feel or we shall not act. But at this 
time, for special reasons, I write about this 
very warm-blooded passage in a very cold- 
blooded way. 



What does it actually say, and what does 
the saying mean? " God loved the world." 
What does it mean to love ? I am sure you 
are saying, '' That is a very simple if not 
silly question. Everybody knows what it is 
to love." But it is, after all, a very difEcult 
word to define. We can illustrate it, but to 
define it is not so easy. Yet definitions are 
important. They are like lighthouses for 
the mariner; they do not shift with the winds 
or tides of feeling but are fixed and reliable. 



GOD'S INTEREST 831 

We must separate the Idea of love from 
the idea of delight in. There are some peo- 
ple who are so kind, and sweet, and inspiring 
to good deeds that we like to be with them. 
They do us good in heart. They are like 
the showers on the meadows; they freshen 
and encourage all our good propensities. 
We say, '' How loveable they are." It is a 
pleasure for us to do things for them. We 
say we love them. But a closer analysis of 
these cases will show that in this feeling we 
only serve ourselves. We enjoy what they 
contribute to our comfort of body or mind. 
Our feeling toward them is a proper and re- 
fined appreciation and gratitude for favors 
received. It would be more accurate to say, 
I appreciate, or, I admire, or, I enjoy so and 
so than to say, I love them. We are simply 
thankful cisterns; reservoirs which can think 
and speak; receptacles of good which is given 
to us by them. Now whatever name we 
may call it by, we all see that this is not the 
kind of feeling that our heavenly Father 
has toward sinful men. He is not delighted 
with the world. He is not receiving from 



84 RELIGION FOR MEN 

the world, though He desires to receive their 
affection. His feeling is of another kind 
entirely. We must have a word of a differ- 
ent meaning. 

Again, His feeling is different from pa- 
rental feeling. A mother has regard for 
her child. She may not delight in all that 
the child does, but she gives her time and 
service to the child because it is her child. 
If the child is not what it ought to be she 
not only bears with it but covers the faults 
with the mantle of obliviousness. That is 
because it is her child. It is in a way a 
sort of self-delight. If it was the child of 
some other woman she would not cover its 
defects, nor bear with its faults as she now 
does. What she bears in her own she dis- 
likes in others. Without intending to be- 
little this feeling we must say that It is in 
the nature of an instinct for the preservation 
of the race. If it were not for that, chil- 
dren would get too little care, every child 
would be an orphan and a waif. In this 
particular, human parents are like animal 
parents. There is a great difference between 



GOD'S INTEREST 85 

this feeling and the love spoken of by John. 

Love differs from affection. We say of a 
child, that she is affectionate when we mean 
that she gives expression to her esteem in 
agreeable ways, — that is desirable, but it 
differs from love. 

There is another sort of feeling. 'A 
woman of refinement and home instincts 
leaves home and country and goes to a for- 
eign land — say to Africa — to be a mission- 
ary. She lives amid scenes that hurt her 
continually. She gives up minor desires that 
she may make those people better and hap- 
pier. She does not delight in them. She 
does not have affection for them at the first. 
But a definite purpose to do them good be- 
cause they need it fills her mind and heart. 
Paul left honors that his countrymen would 
have given him to become a subject of bitter 
persecution that he might make others know 
the goodness of God. That is different from 
delighting in the idolators. The other feel- 
ing is rooted in the desire to receive from 
others ; this has its roots in the desire to give 
to others. The other kinds get their inspira- 



86 RELIGION FOR MEN 

tion from the goodness of others ; the better 
they are the more we delight in them, the 
more affection we have for them. This kind 
gets its inspiration from the badness of peo- 
ple. The worse they are — one might al- 
most say — the more we are pressed on to 
do them good. *' The greatest exercise of 
love is to love the unloveable." 

We may say, then, that love is the constant 
endeavor to make the bad, good; the un- 
loveable, loveable; the unhappy, happy. 

'' Holy love implies something of higher 
ethical value than emotion; it implies a prin- 
ciple of action that controls all thinking and 
willing and doing. It denotes the self-im- 
parting principle, that quality in the nature 
of God that impels Him irresistibly to give 
Himself to others." (Vedder's Socialism 
and Ethics of Jesus, p. 358.) That describes 
what is in the statement, *' God so loved the 
world." He has such a feeling of interest 
in the world that He constantly seeks to 
make the unloveable, lovely; the bad, good; 
and the unhappy, happy. That makes it 
possible for Him to love those that He does 



GOD'S INTEREST 87 

not delight in. He can love sinful men with 
the tenderest love, and yet be pained at heart 
over their evil doings. He can even bring 
great sorrows upon them while He loves 
them tenderly. 

I have dwelt upon this that I may make 
plain the truth that our Father may love some 
of us whom He does not delight in. He 
may love us, and yet be grieved at our sins. 
He may send, or permit great sorrows to 
come upon us and yet not be angry at us. 
It may all be done with the desire to do us 
good. We associate pleasure with love so 
much that we can hardly think of loving 
without it, and when the object of love ceases 
to please us we are liable to cease loving it. 
But His love is constant. It has no tides, 
nor floods, nor droughts. And the measure 
of His love Is not the pleasure He feels, but 
what He does to make us loveable. To love 
is to do things; often co suffer pain in the 
doing of them. 

II 

*' God so loved the worldJ* The empha- 
sis is upon the extent of the love. Paul said 



88 RELIGION FOR MEN 

that, *' Scarcely for a righteous man would 
any man die; perhaps for a good man one 
would even dare to die/* That Is a common 
estimate of human love. It Is limited to the 
good. But the love of God commends it- 
self In that while we were yet sinners Christ 
died for us. All the sinners In the world 
are the objects of God's active endeavors. 
There were plenty of men In those days who 
believed that God loved the Jewish race. 
Jesus would not have gained anybody's at- 
tention nor opposition by saying that. But 
He said God loved the world — all the 
sinners In the world. All the national, and 
racial, and theological boundaries are wiped 
Into oblivion by that saying. He has not 
two faces. A racial religion cannot be a 
God-given religion. God Is one, not two. 
Wherever there Is a man His active endeavor 
to make him good goes on. He did not de- 
light In the nations that opposed Israel, but 
He loved them. He was not pleased with 
the crowds that thronged the heathen tem- 
ples of Rome, but He loved them. He Is 



GOD'S INTEREST 89 

not happy over all that we do, but He loves 
us all. 

And if He loved the world, He loved not 
only that part of it which was then in exist- 
ence, but He loved all the world all the 
time, for He is the same yesterday and for- 
ever. That is. He is now — to-day — 
active in bringing all the world to a knowl- 
edge of Himself, for that is their highest 
good. We may not always recognize His 
activity. It is not likely that we do, except 
in a small way. But this implies that He 
is endeavoring to get hold of every man in 
America — everyone, the writer and the 
reader — to make him a good man. Let us 
not allow the individuality of that statement 
to be disagreeable to us, nor make us hesitate 
to accept it. 

I am sure everyone would gladly do some- 
thing this very hour to make anyone in the 
world better; and we are only finite. Our 
God is not restricted by time nor distance, 
nor by anything except the unbelief of men. 
Is not He more ready than we? The 



;90 RELIGION FOR MEN 

Father whose radiant face enlightens heaven, 
not only would help if we asked Him, but 
He is seeking to help when we do not ask 
Him. 

Ill 

What has He done to make us religious? 

What has He done to make me better? 
What endeavor has He put forth for me? 
He has made us all capable of understanding 
and loving Him. Augustine said, *' Thou 
hast made us for Thyself and our souls are 
restless till we rest in Thee." The soul of 
man is orphaned unless it has a sense of God. 
There is a great place in the heart and life 
which is not filled unless men are trustfully 
obedient to Him. No matter what consola- 
tions men have they receive a new sweetness 
when His help comes. Friendship of God 
excels all other friendships. Our work, 
when we do it as unto Him, is more cheer- 
fully done than at any other time. Music 
and art reach their highest because the con- 
templation of God is a larger subject and 
hence inspires to better things. What a 
work of love it was that we were made capa- 



GOD'S INTEREST 91 

ble of appreciating goodness! Sometimes 
— sometimes — O that we could say all the 
time — we can see the beauty of goodness. 
Truth, and honor, gentleness and kindness, 
loyalty, patience, and love appear glorious 
to us. We say in our souls, '' How I wish 
I could have more of these things In myself." 
Well, It is a great blessing that we can thus 
see beauty In such graces, that we are capable 
of delighting In them. It Is a blessing that 
we can enjoy music when we cannot make 
It. There Is a wonderful organ In Grace 
Temple In Philadelphia. It took a great 
man to build It, and another to play It. 
Some of you have heard " The Storm " as 
It is rendered there. It Is a great goodness 
that you can appreciate It, though you could 
not play the organ. It Is a great thing that 
we are able to appreciate goodness In others 
who are better than we are. The man that 
goes through the streets of a town and says, 
" Here lives a good man; there lives a good 
woman; this Is a good child," — that man, I 
say, has something of goodness In himself or 
he could not see It In others. 



:92 ^RELIGION FOR MEN 

I bnce talked with a country blacksmitH. 
He was pouring out streams of bitterness at 
church members because some of them owed 
him a York shilling or so, I said to him, 
" Suppose you give them a rest now and tell 
me what you think of Jesus,'* He replied, 
lowering his voice, *' Jesus 1^ — if we had 
more like Him we should have a happier 
world.'' It shows something great in a man 
when he softens at the thought of Jesus. I 
can endure It when a man speaks against the 
ministers, for I know we are an imperfect 
lot; I am sorry when he speaks against the 
church members, for I know that If he knew 
them as well as I do he would think more of 
them. — But when a man speaks well of Jesus 
I begin to like him, for I know that he has 
good In himi. We may enjoy a painting 
when we cannot color a wood-cut. We may 
rejoice In architecture when we cannot 
plan a woodshed. So It Is a great thing to 
enjoy goodness even when we do not have 
much of It. But God has made us all so that 
we cannot only enjoy good people, but every- 
one of us Is capable of being good. Let us 



GOD'S INTEREST 93 

take that into our deepest thought. God has 
been from the first so anxious for us to be 
good that He has made us all capable of 
it. *' Of his fullness have we all received 
and grace for grace "; and '' to as many as 
believed on Him to them gave He power to 
become the children of God." 

This idea, that God made us all funda- 
mentally in His image, underlies the reason- 
ing of the New Testament. It is our normal 
condition. We may have a poor idea of 
ourselves, but the cheapest of us has all the 
moral equipment to be a good man. All the 
affections that a good man has are at least 
rudimentary in us. The love of truth, gen- 
tleness, faith, reverence, manliness — every- 
thing which we find in the New Testament 
as marks of a good man are germinal at least 
in the worst man. The wheels, so to speak, 
are all in the man, though they may not be 
in good order. That much God has done 
for each one already. Goodness is made 
possible. Potentially we are all saints, 
though actually we may come short of it. 

But another thing He has actually done 



94 RELIGION FOR MEN 

toward making us good is that for centuries 
He has kept special agents In the world to 
prepare the way for One who would save 
us. No one denies the history of the Jewish 
race in its main features. Abraham was the 
man of God from whom sprang a nation 
that was, until Christ's time, a constant and 
shining light to help men to be good men. 
Notwithstanding the faults of individuals the 
temple services, the civil institutions, the 
moral principles, the splendid examples of 
the Jewish people, held up to the world a 
light which kept back the darkness of 
heathenism. The spiritual idea of God was 
found nowhere else as pure as with them; 
the idea of righteousness in conduct was the 
highest; the hope of men was kept alive and 
comforting; the family life was high and 
noble; the idea of one God has been fixed 
forever. 

No unprejudiced man can read the Bible 
and not feel that a divine One was in some 
way in the history, trying to make the world 
better, and preparing the way for One to 
come who would be a great Saviour. All 



GOD'S INTEREST 95 

the best ideals were cultivated there In that 
little country. Through the whole history 
God was working to impress on the world at 
large, and for the world at large, things that 
make for Its good. That history was domi- 
nated by the expectation of a coming Mes- 
siah, a Saviour who should bless the whole 
world. It was God loving the world. The 
Old Testament that lies on our tables Is a 
witness that for centuries God was Interested 
In preparing for us a word of hope and a 
work of love. 

Christ came to advance the same undertak- 
ing. I will not stop here to ask you to un- 
derstand what He did, but only to recall It. 
That wonderful person whose word the 
winds of heaven obeyed, whose bruised and 
wounded body the king of terrors could not 
hold In captivity — he spent his time and 
strength with men pleading with them to be 
reconciled with God. He preached to men 
the noblest kind of living. That Sermon on 
the Mount, If men would follow Its principles, 
would make a world of delight. The lofty 
Ideals It furnishes, the kindly spirit It en- 



96 RELIGION FOR MEN 

courages, the calm trust in God it inculcates, 
the unlimited charity It teaches, the courage 
it inspires, the unswerving loyalty it requires, 
make it the completest condensation of 
morals in the world. 

And then the parables of Jesus give the 
same kind of teaching set In concrete forms. 
They explain, they enlist the sympathies, 
they awaken the emotions, they set the will 
in action. 

Then the promises are abundant. 

The life He lived was so humble, and 
sane, and sound, and good, that all who know 
of It desire to have more of it themselves. 

And finally that perfect loving life was 
freely surrendered on the cross at the ap- 
pointed time to the Roman executioners for 
the sins of the world. I do not attempt to 
explain the mystery of that atonement, for I 
cannot fathom It myself. But this we can all 
see, greater love He could not have had than 
the love He there showed. Divine love must 
somehow be expressed In human measure, and 
that was the largest measure He had. But 
the result of It we are abundantly told. iWe 



GOD'S INTEREST 97 

are " justified by His grace through the re- 
demption that was in Christ Jesus." " He 
bore our sins in His own body on the tree." 
AH that sacrifices were thought to do in Israel 
He did. All that human thought can ask 
another to do He did in that death and resur- 
rection. He suffered death for every man. 
Some of that suffering was for you and for 
me. Some of that endeavor to get men back 
to God was for you and for me, because He 
loved the world and we are a part of the 
world He loved. 

And He has kept the organized church in 
the world for the sake of bringing the world 
to know that His love is world wide. 
Through the storms of political trouble the 
Church has lived and preached. Amid the 
dangers of internal weakness it has had a 
recuperative strength which has kept it until 
now. When we read church history we re- 
call the word of Jesus about it, " The power 
of the grave shall not prevail against it." 
So to-day the Church, held together by no 
fictitious issues but by the spirit of service to 
the world, is holding forth the invitations 



98 RELIGION FOR MEN 

and encouragements that Jesus gave to bring 
men to God. Every church tower, every bell 
that rings its call to prayer, is a call to come 
and take the water of life. Every proces- 
sion of people wending their way to church 
is a witness that God Is still helping the world 
through His Church. 

But this Is not all. The most Impressive 
thought Is that after all these things the voice 
of God comes to Individuals urging, and 
helping them, when they do not at first recog- 
nize Him. As we think of It how wonderful 
it seems to be ! We are going along In the 
common course of life, and there comes Into 
our mind a sort of vision of things, a new 
view of ourselves, which changes the whole 
tenor of life. It was not a man's word. It 
was not something we thought out, but It 
seemed to come up In us though not of us. 
It had no voice to speak to our ears but It 
had a message to our hearts. Or It may be 
we have committed ourselves to the Chris- 
tian course of life. We have been trying to 
rid ourselves of evils, " perfecting holiness 
in the fear of God." And there has come 



GOD'S INTEREST 99 

a strange power in our hearts that subdued 
us, and that made the evils to shrink up as 
if some blight had touched them. The sins 
that had been our masters somehow lost 
their power over us ; and we feel that some- 
thing greater than ourselves has worked 
within us to will and to do right. All these 
things are His works in us. It is the per- 
sonal discipline, by the personal God. The 
individual manifestation of the individual 
love God has for every individual of us. I 
cannot express my thought about it. It 
often subdues me into silence. To think that 
this voice in me, this power that helps me, 
is the personal God taking note of me. I 
am sure you will understand how such a 
thought. If a man has it, moves him. The 
psalmist said, " When I consider the heavens 
the work of Thy hands, what Is man that 
Thou art mindful of him? " 

The great climax of His goodness is, 

"Jesus sought me when a stranger, 
Wandering from the fold of God." 

Now these are the practical every-day 
things that show the love of God for the 



lOo RELIGION FOR MEN 

world. In all our thinking about the subject 
of religion this must be taken into our ac- 
count. If we think of our sin, It Is to be 
measured by what He has done. If we think 
of our weakness, It Is to be encouraged by 
what He Is able to do In us. If we think 
of our destiny, It must be In the light of such 
love. The whole problem of life must be 
considered In the light of this: ^^ God so 
loved the worldJ^ — God so loves me, that 
He has set In motion all these things to bring 
me to be a good man here, and to have a 
glorious life hereafter. 

A lawyer who had fallen under the power 
of drink was aroused to his danger and re- 
solved to be free. He told me of a fight 
he had with It In his office In which his better 
self conquered. Afterward he thought he 
ought to help his fellow-men, so he went 
about lecturing on temperance. He was not 
consciously a religious man. It was late In 
August. He was going down the valley of 
the Chenango on the D. & L. R. R. The 
sun shone from the west; the golden grain 
waved in the breezes. And as he sat look- 



GOD'S INTEREST loi 

ing out on the beauty, there came over him 
the thought of God who made it all. He 
had seen the grain before, but he had not 
seen God in it before, and he was led to say 
in his heart, " O God I thank Thee.'' Then 
he went down to Sherburne, N. Y. to a lec- 
ture. All the churches were in the work of 
temperance, and the ministers were on the 
platform to give him their support. The 
Methodist minister, after reading the Scrip- 
ture, supposing of course that a man in that 
work was a religious man, turned and said, 
" Mr. Burdick will lead us in prayer." He 
had never done such a thing. For a beat or 
two his heart skipped. Then he rose and 
prayed as only such a man in such a circum- 
stance could pray. He was committed to 
God then and there. God had been follow- 
ing him when he knew it not, and now 
brought him to see who was leading him. 
God is interested in your religion and mine 
more than we know. He has followed us. 
He has called us. He will follow and walk 
with us, and He is able to save us. I pray 
you do not think, nor say, without dissent 



102 RELIGION FOR MEN 

when you can courteously make it, that a man 
cannot be religious in business. God so loves 
the world now that whoso believeth in Christ 
His Son may begin at once the eternal life. 
Prayer. — Lord help us to see Thy con- 
stant interest in us. Help us to believe in 
Thy power. And keep the thought of Thy- 
self and Thy goodness daily 5^ith us. 



THE EFFICIENT SAVIOUR FROM 
IRRELIGION 



SUGGESTION 

And there were shepherds in the same country abiding 
in the field, and keeping watch by night over their flock. 
And an angel of the Lord stood by them, and the glory 
of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore 
afraid. And the angel said unto them, Be not afraid; 
for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which 
shall be to all the people: for there is born to you this 
day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the 
Lord. — Luke 2:8-11. 

The life of Jesus is the knot in which all the previous 
history is gathered up, and from which the threads of 
succeeding events again diverge. In that single figure 
all previous development finds its sufficient explanation. 

— Prof. Ramsay. 



CHAPTER V; 

THE EFFICIENT SAVIOUR FROM IRRELIGION 

In former chapters we have said that life 
IS incomplete without a sense of God. That 
the sorrows of irreligion are due to faults 
in us; that our heavenly Father has a con- 
stant abiding interest in our being religious 
in the best sense. 

I write now about the Efficient Saviour 
from Irreligion. In the story of Jesus' birth 
a noticeable characteristic is the absence of 
what we might at first thought have expected 
to find there. 

We are not told that the angel said, 
*' Unto you is born a sociologist." I suppose 
there is no influence in the world so potent 
to change sociological conditions as Jesus. 
One of the best of writers has said that the 
Christian Church has made the whole social 
problem. It presents new Ideas of men's re- 



io6 RELIGION FOR MEN 

lations to one another that must sooner or 
later find expression in social relation. But 
Jesus did not pose as a sociologist. 

The angel did not say, " A great philoso- 
pher is born unto you.'^ Probably there was 
underneath Jesus' life and teaching a true — 
the only true — philosophy. As the cen- 
turies pass and men try to discover the re- 
lations of things a system of philosophy is 
evolving. I heard the great philosopher, 
President Schurman of Cornell University, 
speak for an hour and a half in simple lan- 
guage about the most abstruse subjects, stat- 
ing the philosophical truths that are now 
established by consent of all. And every 
statement is but another form and vocabu- 
lary of principles that emerge every now and 
then in Jesus' teaching. But Jesus did not 
stand forth as a philosopher. 

Neither did the angel say, "There is 
born a moral teacher." Yet what moral 
teacher has taught a higher morality, or 
done more to bring good morals into practice 
than He? Some of you have read Herbert 
Spencer's book " The Data of Ethics," which 



THE EFFICIENT SAVIOUR 107 

made quite a stir among teachers. He 
sought to find outside of the New Testament 
some fundamental ideas for the regulation 
of human conduct. You noticed that every 
datum he laid down could be stated In fewer 
words, and quite as clearly, in texts from 
the New Testament. And yet Jesus did not 
write a book on ethics. 

The angel did not say that ** a political 
redeemer was born that night." But Jesus 
has always been a political redeemer. It is 
true to-day. Every throne in Europe feels 
Its foundations tremble unless the principles 
of Jesus are being followed. England's 
throne is secure because there the people rule 
the throne, not vice versa. In Russia all the 
government either is awake, or sleeps with 
one eye open for fear; and its foundations 
will be shaken in proportion as its people 
come to know the teaching of this One whom 
the angels announced. But Jesus did not 
lead a political party. 

The angel did not say, " A great theolo- 
gian IS born." But Jesus was a theologian. 
Theology is the science of God, and Jesus 



io8 RELIGION FOR MEN 

knew God better than anyone else knew Him 
(Luke 10:22). He revealed Him more 
fully than any other source of information 
had done. He knew more of His plans than 
all men put together. But there Is no system 
of theology set forth In the New Testament. 
A good theology shines through It all and 
beautifies It, but one would feel that to call 
Jesus a theologian belittles him. 

No ! The message was '' This night is 
born a Saviour." 

1 

And to he a Saviour he must touch the 
source of our trouble. 

And our trouble Is not fundamentally 
sociological nor theological. A man may 
have the comfort of religion in very poor 
sociological conditions. The majority of 
Christians are in such conditions now. When 
a man's money is gone, and his health fails, 
he may *' walk through the valley of the 
shadow of death and fear no evil.'^ He may 
stand in the presence of the specter of death 
and not pale with dread. But if he have not 



THE EFFICIENT SAVIOUR 105 

God he is in trouble. To be destitute of a 
guide in life's pathway; to be without an 
unseen companion ; to have no definite hope, 
— such things are the sorrows of life that a 
Saviour must assuage if He is ef&cient. And 
the whole situation of some men is condensed 
in one word. I do not like to use it, for it 
has a meaning I do not intend. It often 
means to be low and wicked, but I use it in 
Its true meaning — the man is God-less. He 
is lacking in a sense of God — that makes 
the trouble. And the only one who can be 
a Saviour for us is he who can put God back 
into men's hearts again. 

Henry Van Dyke has parabled this thought 
in a beautiful story which I may try to con- 
dense. — 

The story runs that in Antioch in the 4th 
Century, a young man who had been dis- 
herited by his rich father for joining the 
Christian Church, was by a magician prom- 
ised all happiness if he would let him blot 
out the name of God from his memory. He 
consented and therefore left the Christian 
Church and went back to his luxurious home. 



no RELIGION FOR MEN 

His father was dying, but in his dying hours 
reinstated his son and then begged him to 
tell him the religion for which he had for- 
merly left home, for, said he, I am dying and 
it all looks dark to me. But his son could 
not remember the name of God. Later the 
son married the girl of his choice and after- 
wards came to great prosperity and honor. 
And then in the moments of their happiness 
he and his wife talked together in this fashion. 
Hermas said, '' There is something that op- 
presses me like an invisible burden; some- 
thing undone that is needed to complete 
everything." And she replied, '' Yes, I have 
felt it. What we need is gratitude. There 
is no perfect joy without gratitude. Not to 
have it is like being dumb with a heart full 
of love. Let us go and give thanks." So 
they went into a grove, to a forgotten shrine, 
and Hermas said, " Fair is the world, fairer 
still is the life in our breasts. Life is abun- 
dant within us. For all good things we 
thank " — but there was a blank in his mind, 
he knew no one to thank. He looked for 
a face and saw a void. He sought for a 



THE EFFICIENT SAVIOUR iii 

hand and clasped vacancy. The bell swung 
to and fro in his heart but made no sound. 
All the fullness of his feeling fell back from 
the empty sky, cold as snow, frozen and dead. 
There was no meaning in his happiness. No 
one had sent it to him. There was no one 
to thank. Then, his little son was injured 
and lay unconscious and beyond their cure. 
Then they said, *' Let us try and pray "; but 
when they were about to do it the name of 
God was gone. There was no one to whom 
the prayer could be addressed. Then in the 
midst of all their luxury they said, '' We are 
poor, we are destitute, we are afflicted. In 
all this house, in all this world, there is no 
one to help us." Then the Presbyter John 
came and comforted him saying, '' I will tell 
you the name you have forgotten. It is the 
name of God your heavenly Father." Then 
the boy awoke and Hermas was saved. 

I know of no more accurate presentation 
of the case of those who have no religion 
than that. No one to thank. No one to 
help. No gratitude for favors! No as- 
surance of safety! And no comfort unless 



112; RELIGION FOR MEN 

God can be restored to them. In all ages 
whenever men have been without the con- 
sciousness of God, and have not taken Him 
into their calculations, the real glory of life 
has departed. Not only do men's fears 
grow into large proportions when they have 
no God to deliver, but the fragrance of every 
flower evaporates, and the fruitfulness of 
every field shrinks, and the beauty of every 
prospect changes to decay, without the glow- 
ing sunlight of religion. I do not say my 
religion, nor do I say my theology, but Re- 
ligion. That trustful submission to God as 
he is known to you, — that is the sun of life, 
and without that the mid-summer sun shines 
but dim, the fields strive in vain to look gay. 

II 

The terms " lost " and *' saved " are preg- 
nant with meaning. They are familiar 
terms, but when we attempt to state what 
we actually mean by them we have difficulty. 
Sometimes we see great mountains dimly 
from afar, and through haze or mists. Are 
there trees on those mountains? I do not 



THE EFFICIENT SAVIOUR 113 

know. Are there terraces at the base, and 
brooks running down their sides, and mineral 
wealth within? Do they mark the bound- 
aries of states? Are they important ele- 
ments in the weather? To all these ques- 
tions we must answer, "I do not know." 
"And yet you say there are mountains 
there? " " Yes, I know there are." Well, 
that is strange; you know there are mountains 
but you ^ know almost nothing definite about 
them. " Yes, I know certainly but not defi- 
nitely." 

So in this matter of " saved " and " lost," 
we know with little definiteness, but we know 
with certainty. Of the lost Jesus said, 
" They go into outer darkness, where there 
is the weeping and gnashing of teeth." It 
is said the Prodigal had desperate hunger in 
a far country. The servant who had hidden 
his napkin had his talent taken from him. 
And the " goats " went into everlasting pun- 
Ishment. All these words are indefinite but 
positive. We may say that such people did 
not turn their hearts Godward in life, and 
the last we know of them they were facing 



114 RELIGION FOR MEN 

away from Him. It Is a matter of direction, 
of attitude. Where that direction leads to 
we do not know. What will come of it we 
cannot tell. " Lost " is the New Testament 
word. The Son of man Is come to seek and 
to save the " lost." 

We do not mean when we say that a man 
IS " saved " that he Is perfected. Paul said, 
" Not that I have already attained or have 
already been perfected, but I press toward 
the mark for the prize of the high calling 
of God." The last people to claim perfec- 
tion are those who call Jesus Saviour. 

Nor do we mean satisfaction. Christians 
are not discontented, but they are never satis- 
fied with themselves. Like the psalmist 
they all say, *' I shall be satisfied when I 
awake In His likeness." 

But It means that a man has been brought 
Into right relation to God, and right attitude 
toward Him. He Is not now among the dis- 
obedient and the untrustful. Whatever his 
sins may have done to put him In hostile re- 
lations has been overcome, and he now trusts 
God with his whole heart. ^a 



THE EFFICIENT SAVIOUR 1151 

Of the saved it is said, " It doth not yet 
appear what we shall be but when He ap- 
pears " we shall be like Him." Again it Is 
said, *' Eye hath not seen, but God hath re- 
vealed It by his Spirit." And again, '* This 
mortal shall put on immortality." Under 
all these various expressions there is one 
thought which gives meaning to them all, 
namely, to be trustfully obedient to God will 
end in all goodness and blessing. Not to be 
so, will end in all sorrow and loss. 

.When a man Is not right with God he may 
have many blessings for a time, but that dis- 
agreement In heart with God will work out 
his utter failure in life. It will steal away 
the sweetness of his best pleasures, and some- 
times leave him without worth to himself. 

And on the other hand, the man who is 
right with God may for a time endure the 
ills that come from living In a mixed world, 
but ultimately he will receive in himself all 
that an infinitely gracious God provides for 
those that love Him. 

So it resolves Itself Into this. That man 
who is now right with God is " saved " be- 



ii6 RELIGION FOR MEN 

cause he is in line with forces which will end 
in his full completeness; and that man who 
is now not right with God and remains thus 
is *' lost," because he is cut off from that help 
which can make him conquer evil. To be 
'* saved " or ** lost " depends on our relation 
to God and our attitude to God as we know 
Him. Out on the ocean is a great ship and 
a man has been washed overboard. The 
captain signals the engineer to stop. The 
wheelman brings the ship about. A boat is 
manned and lowered. Passengers rush to 
the side of the ship and watch the man as 
he fights the waves with failing strength. 
They see the small boat approach him with 
caution, and then a strong sailor reaches him, 
takes him by the collar and pulls him into the 
boat. Then all the passengers cry, " Saved, 
Saved, He is saved ! " And yet he is not 
saved. He is out there in the ocean, among 
the great waves, and even when he comes 
aboard the steamer he is far from home. 
But yet they say '' Saved," because the hands 
that now have him are strong and sure. So 
a man who has been going wrong, has 



THE EFFICIENT SAVIOUR 117 

buffetted the waves of sin and temptation 
until he IS about discouraged; but now he is 
trustfully submissive to God as his refuge and 
strength — he is a saved man because he is 
at last submissively in the hands of One who 
IS *' able to save to the uttermost all that 
will come unto God by him," We are saved 
by hope. 

We see a young man brought up in a re- 
ligious way, who has decided for himself 
that he will be obedient as far as he knows 
It to the will of God. That man lives in 
the presence of temptation and in the sight of 
sin, but we think of him as a *' saved " man, 
because there is a relation between him and 
our God which will keep and guide. 

And here is another man. He has gone 
wrong. He has yielded to the evil until it 
is habitual with him; the fruits of evil are 
appearing in his heart and life continually. 
God is not in his thoughts. He is playing 
the game of life alone, and he is not winning 
it. But if that man should by any means be 
put into relation with God, so that the help 
of many kinds which God supplies can be- 



ii8 RELIGION FOR MEN 

come his help, both we and he will think of 
him as saved. He has not yet been per- 
fected, as Paul said about himself, but he 
has his face toward the goal, and God is his 
helper. He has his faults, but he fights 
them. He stumbles but he does not fall. 
His strength fails, but it is renewed like the 
eagle's. He runs but does not weary; he 
walks and does not faint. He is " saved.'' 

Now If there Is any way by which we may 
attain the right relation to our heavenly 
Father, that way becomes the Way of salva- 
tion, and he who puts us In It becomes our 
Saviour. 

So we may say that a Saviour Is one who 
gives us or produces in us a trustful, obedient 
attitude toward God, and who puts us In the 
right relation to God. If a man can have 
those, he will have hope and courage and 
ultimate salvation, for God is his. And If 
he does not have them, how can he hope to 
do anything but fail? God who has a des- 
tiny for him, he ignores ; how can he do any- 
thing but fail at last? If a man could suc- 
ceed and not follow God's plan, then God 



THE EFFICIENT SAVIOUR 119 

IS no longer God. If some other plan than 
God's plan is a better success, then God be- 
comes the second best. And If my independ- 
ent plan IS better for me than God's plan, 
then I am better than God. What conceit 
that IS ! Not to have a trustful attitude to- 
ward God is to be '' lost " with all that im- 
plies. 

I know of nothing that comprises there- 
fore so much in itself as To be right with 
God. Open that treasure box and see what 
it contains. It has divine wisdom in place 
of my short-sighted, and cross-eyed, and 
astigmatic moral vision. It has help for me 
in my best endeavors. It has correction for 
my misjudgments. It has a disciplinary hand 
to educate me aright. It has a wondrous 
power working in me to love the right and 
to do the right. It has defenses for me, a 
sort of talisman to keep off an hundred ills. 
It has still more, — this one jewel — the gra- 
ciousness of God. Who can measure that? 
** According to the riches of His grace 1" 
That is Salvation! He who brings that Is 
Saviour indeed. 



120 RELIGION FOR MEN 

III 

^And that is what Jesus came to do. He is 
explicitly called Saviour 26 times In the New 
Testament, and the thought Saviour is in all 
the books as the water-mark Is in paper. 
Peter said, in Him we have an *' inheritance 
incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not 
away reserved In heaven for you who are 
kept by the power of God through faith unto 
a salvation ready to be revealed in the last 
time.'* (Pet. 1:4.) John wrote that the 
purpose of his gospel was to make men know 
Jesus, and have eternal life. Paul said he 
waited for a crown to be given him *^ In that 
day." (II Tim. 4:8.) In Hebrews we 
read, " He hath obtained for us eternal re- 
demption." (Heb. 9:12.) So every- 
where. In the New Testament while we have 
great consolations for this life, the salvation 
he gives can only be consummated in some 
other and future state. 

And history Is showing His hand. I had 
a letter last week from a saint in Vermont, 
past 80 years of age. He wrote In large 



THE EFFICIENT SAVIOUR 121; 

letters with the signs of age in his trembling 
hand. And at the end he wrote across the 
page in one line and large letters CHINA, 
and under it he says, '' China is on the screen, 
and God Is handhng the slides." That is 
fact. This great upheaval has come about by 
the leavening influences of Christian teaching 
for fifty years; Sun Yat Sen, who was made 
the provisional president of the new govern- 
ment is a Christian man. Who can foretell 
the future? 

And It Is a fact of Immense Importance 
that of all the religions mentioned in the 
Bible all have died except the Christian. 
We read of Baal and Ashtaroth, and Che- 
mosh, and Bel, and Nebo; but no man any- 
where now bows at their name. We read In 
the annals of Egypt about Amen, and Kneph, 
and Khem, and Setl, and Ra and Tum; but 
silenced forever are their praises; deserted 
and In ruins are their temples. Of the more 
modern religions, Buddhism Is the most virile 
competitor of the Christian, and that has 
ceased to propagate; the marks of senility 
are already upon It. The only religion that 



122 RELIGION FOR MEN 

IS growing in all directions is that which this 
Jesus told His disciples to preach to all na- 
tions, and He would be with them to give 
success. 

IV 

'And Jesus is doing what He came to do. 
He is keeping the families that have brought 
up their children in nurture and admonition 
of the Lord. Thousands upon thousands of 
them have taught their children the way of 
God and they have not departed from it. 

And He is restoring the '' prodigal sons.'' 
Everywhere men who have been in far coun- 
tries and have come back in sorrow, have 
been received and pardoned and saved. In- 
deed few of us but have had lapses when we 
faced a far country for a little, but when we 
returned He saved us by restoring the joy of 
salvation. And everywhere men who have 
not known God are being brought to see the 
truth and come into right relation with 
Him. 

And He is working in us to will and do His 
good pleasure. We find the ties that bound 



THE EFFICIENT SAVIOUR 123 

our affections to some unworthy things arc 
loosened and being fixed upon heavenly 
things. We have steadier faith and greater 
joys. The old sins and prejudices have gone 
where the frosts of spring go. Somehow the 
sun of His grace has shone upon the whole 
field of our life and made every good thing 
to grow. Our sympathies are broader, our 
view is clearer, we live more of the time on 
the higher planes of life. We feel the on- 
coming of that time when all the ice will 
be gone and the summer of the Christian 
life will be in full blossom. 

Yes, a Saviour was born, and He lives 
and works efllciently. 

And this being true, may I not urge you 
to give the matter thoughtful consideration? 
There are many blessings that come to us 
in the press of business; flashes of heavenly 
light in the midst of gloom; but there is a 
kind of comfort and help that can come only 
to those that can get a quiet meditative hour, 
where they can consider God's goodness; 
when they can feel themselves alone with 
Him. When they do that their vision gets 



124 RELIGION FOR MEN 

clearer, their way seems plainer, and they 
feel themselves to be In the care of a Saviour. 
Prayer. — Lord Jesus, accept the gratitude 
of our hearts for Thy great goodness, and 
work in us continually the sense and joy of 
Thy salvation unto eternity. 



TWIN CONDITIONS OF THE 
CHRISTIAN RELIGION 



SUGGESTION 

I taught you publicly, and from house to house, testify- 
ing both to Jews and to Greeks, repentance toward God, 
and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. — Acts 20:21. 

"In religious evolution there are necessary moments 
of destruction, when old ideas seem to crumble. But 
they do not crumble: they merely change their form. 
We remake them for ourselves. 

" When the Divine Power manifests itself to a man, he 
knows it, and it becomes to him a possession forever, to 
rule him or to destroy him." 



CHAPTER VI 

TWIN CONDITIONS OF THE CHRISTIAN RE- 
LIGION 

There are two places in the record where 
we get a view of what Paul considered cen- 
tral in his own preaching. One is in the 
15th. of I Cor, *' I delivered unto you 
first of all that which I also received, how 
that Christ died for our sins according to the 
scriptures; and that he was buried, and that 
he rose again the third day according to the 
scriptures; and that he appeared" to many. 
Those were the objective historic facts about 
Christ Jesus which men must know before 
they could be expected to believe on Him. 
They tell what He did for our help. 

We have already considered Jesus as a 
Saviour, and that is what Paul was speaking 
about among all the peoples where he went. 
But to be a Saviour, He went through these 
experiences of death and resurrection. 



;i28j RELIGION FOR MEN 

iWhen Paul was leaving his last message 
to his beloved church at Ephesus, putting into 
short form what was vital to their welfare, 
he stated what men have as their part to 
do in being saved. He said, '^ I testified re- 
pentance toward God, and faith in the Lord 
Jesus Christ." That was his central mes- 
sage to men on that point. We know that 
Paul was much more than an evangelist. He 
taught the churches their duties to their fel- 
low-men. But here, when he is making what 
he thought was his last address to them, and 
is summing up what were the vital condi- 
tions on which they could obtain the bless- 
ings of the religious life, he puts into bold 
prominence two things — repentance toward 
God, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Having discussed the inestimable value of 
religion, I now desire to set forth these twin 
conditions of obtaining the blessings of the 
Christian religion. And at the outset let us 
notice that what a man must eat for good 
health and strength is regulated, not by a 
depraved taste, nor by the fancy of a French 
cook. There is a vital relation between the 



TWIN CONDITIONS 129 

food and his body that must be considered. 
His food must supply what his body needs. 
Pickles and candy do not make a strong 
young woman. Pies and ice-cream do not 
make athletes. The farmer knows that 
some crops will grow In sandy soil and some 
in clay. He does not plant corn in soil not 
fitted for It unless he supplies the deficiency in 
soil by artificial fertilizers. It is as true in 
the religious realm as in the other that there 
is a vital relation between what is required to 
have a religious life and what the religion 
itself requires. Paul did not teach us to do 
anything that the religious life itself does not 
by its very nature demand. The needs of a 
congregation are not met by the eccentricities 
of a pulpiteer who chooses his theme to fit 
his variations of sentiment without reference 
to the needs of the people. There must be 
a relation of his preaching to their condi- 
tions and aptitudes. The preaching must fit 
the people's needs. Paul said to the Corin- 
thians (i Cor. 3:2),"! fed you with milk, 
not with meat, for ye were not yet able to 
bear it." He gave them, not what someone 



ijo RELIGION FOR MEN 

told him he ought to give, but what he 
thought was a necessity for their conditions 
to make them grow strong. He taught them 
what they needed to know. This same idea 
of relation between what is required of us, 
and the nature of the case, is underneath the 
preaching of repentance and faith. They 
are the only things that can do for men what 
is necessary to give them the blessings of 
religion. 

And these same things remain the funda- 
mental necessities for us of this day. Hu- 
man nature and the divine nature being such 
as they are, no other terms can possibly meet 
the case for us. Irreligion is Godlessness, 
that is, life with God gone out of conscious- 
ness. To cure irreligion then is to put God 
hack into His place. 

Let us consider then repentance toward 
God, for religion has God in it centrally. 



But first I want to call attention to some 
of the incorrect ideas of repentance common 
in men's minds, judging from the use they 



TWIN CONDITIONS 131 

make of the word. (And except the word 
" faith," I suppose the word " repentance " 
Is most frequent among those who talk about 
the matter.) 

One of the common definitions Is " sorrow 
for sin." That is incomplete, and it mis- 
leads. One can be sorry for sin and not be 
repentant. I suppose there are many people 
who are sorry they spoke unkindly yesterday, 
or were crooked in. business last week. A 
boy might be sorry when his father punishes 
him — he ought to be. Men are sorry they 
were Impure in their early life. But that is 
not religious repentance, for it does not put 
God back in His place. And there are 
others who know they have been long time 
in the practice of Immoralities and yet they 
cannot make themselves sorry for sin; — they 
know It and are not sorry. We have three 
elements In life. They are not to be thought 
of as entirely separate; but yet every act 
has three elements. The first, a knowledge 
that something has been made known as 
right; that is in the realm of intelligence. 
The second, a feeling of oughtness about it; 



132: RELIGION FOR MEN 

a certain inward pressure to do It; that is in 
the realm of the feelings. The third, the 
actual movement of the self In the line of 
the duty; that Is the realm of the will. 

No one, I suppose, thinks that repentance 
is In the first realm — ^the realm of Intelli- 
gence, but many think It Is in the second 
realm — the feeling realm. They empha- 
size the sorrow definition. But I think that 
we shall sec that It is not there, but In the 
third — the realm of the will. It Is some- 
thing that we can do, something we ought to 
do, something that gives us discomfort if we 
fail to do. Those who heard John the Bap- 
tist preach said, — not, How shall we feel? — 
but What shall we do? At Pentecost men 
were pricked In their hearts, but they said, 
What shall we do? The Jailer at Philippi 
said, What shall I do? Repentance Is not 
feeling, but a decision to do. All must climax 
Itself In action of mind or heart or hand, If 
any permanent results are to be obtained. 

There Is another Insufficient definition of 
repentance. It Is called, ^' Turning over a 
new leaf ''; but that Is not complete. A man 



J 



TWIN CONDITIONS 133 

can turn over many new leaves and not come 
in sight of what Paul is talking about. A 
man might say, I will swear off drinking, for 
it threatens my health and my business; I 
will stop smoking, for it is expensive; I will 
become honest for it is the best policy; I will 
be kinder in my family, for it begets a better 
state of things; I will keep the Sabbath for 
It has a civilizing effect. Now all these are 
valuable, and not to be despised. Any com- 
munity will be improved if many men would 
turn over a lot of new leaves to-morrow; but 
they are a long way from the high position 
of Paul's " Repentance toward God," unless 
they turn over to the leaf where God is writ- 
ten large and plain. Reformation is not re- 
pentance for it does not put God back in His 
place. 

Another definition is, *^ About Face. Go 
the other wayJ^ That depends on whether 
a man was going the absolutely wrong way 
before. There are many men who are not 
going the opposite way; they arc headed 
about northeast instead of due east toward 
the sun. If they are hostile to God then 



134 RELIGION FOR MEN 

" about face " is repentance, but If they arc 
only indifferent to God then about face does 
not meet the situation. 

What Paul preached, and what we need is 
this, put in a short form — Enthrone God 
in your heart. Just that and nothing more 
IS repentance. There may be experiences of 
various sorts that lead up to that. A man 
may have sorrow for sin. He must have 
had some dissatisfaction of soul or he would 
not be interested in the subject at all. 

II 

Suppose a man has a ship, all his own, and 
he is to sail from Philadelphia to Liverpool. 
He has studied navigation and knows the 
parts of the ship and their function; so he 
holds up his head and says, " I can sail this 
ship. The river is wide and deep. Before 
dark we shall pass Cape May and have a 
whole sea before us." He has heard the 
tales of seamen that have been shipwrecked. 
He knows the losses of insurance companies 
that have come from such wrecks. He sees 



TWIN CONDITIONS 135 

the shores marked by the flotsam of ships lost 
at sea. But he thinks he knows it all and 
says, " I will sail alone. This is my ship. 
What is a captain for if he cannot sail his 
ship?" That man is like the unrepentant. 
He is independent of guidance. He may or 
he may not be hostile to the requirements 
of morality. He may or he may not be re- 
bellious to law, but he is unrelated to God 
in his own consciousness. He " plays it 
alone." 

But here is another man. He too has a 
ship and he must sail a voyage ; but he feels 
the responsibility. He says, " I have my 
fortune In this ship. My family and my 
friends are upon It. The fortunes of other 
men are involved. What can I do ? There 
may be shoals and sunken rocks and crooked 
channels that only an expert knows. I can- 
not go alone." He says as Moses said in 
the early days, *' Let me not go unless Thy 
presence go with me." 

Now he Is told that the government has 
had the river charted,. and the rocks and reefs 
all marked, and guidance Is furnished to se- 



136 RELIGION FOR MEN 

cure safety. And he says, *' I recognize the 
wisdom of government, and I will not cast 
off a hawser, nor weigh. an anchor, nor signal 
a hint to my engineer, until the government 
wisdom is mine. I can wait but I cannot sail 
independent of government.'* 

Now that attitude of the captain is re- 
pentance toward government. It is a mat- 
ter of heart attitude. It might be that he 
has tried alone before and failed, then he 
would be sorry. Or he may have lost time, 
then he will hurry. But the inward submis- 
sion is repentance. So when a young man 
seriously thinks of his life responsibility — • 
it may be to care for a family and rear his 
children; when he sees the wreckage of souls ; 
when he hears of the dangers; and in his soul 
says, I cannot go without God, then he is 
repentant toward God, then he is like Samuel 
when he said, " Speak, Lord; for thy servant 
heareth " ; or like Paul when he said, " Lord, 
what wilt thou have me to do? " That puts 
God back into his heart where He belongs. 



TWIN CONDITIONS 137 

ni 

And now the other condition — Faith in 
our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the distinc- 
tive mark of the Christian religion. 

We have written with the understanding 
that religion was used in the broad sense; 
used to mean the experiences that men have 
in their submission to God as they know Him. 
In that sense there is much religion among 
men. There may be repentance to his God 
by a heathen. And there are very joyful 
experiences to those that have not our Ideas. 
The psalmists of the Old Testament had 
such. 

President Garfield once said that the dif- 
ference between the successful and the un- 
successful man is due to a small amount of 
difference. Nine-tenths of what all business 
men do is identical. They all invest money ; 
they put In their time; they ask credit and 
give credit; they meet some losses; they take 
some risks. But one man has a little more 
foresight, or a little more energy, and he 
makes money where others just live along. 



138 RELIGION FOR MEN 

Now that extra thing is his *^ margin,*' and 
that makes success. All the religions have 
some good, but the Christian religion has a 
large margin of excellence above all others 
that makes it the religion par excellence, and 
that margin is Jesus Christ. This is now be- 
ing recognized. Formerly when a mission- 
ary went to China he told them they were all 
bad; their religion was all of the devil, and 
they were all doomed to eternal misery. 
Now he says to their leaders, *' Let us reason 
together. We have much in common; we 
are all mortal; we are going on to judgment; 
you have reverence and so have we ; you have 
repentance toward your gods and we have 
toward ours. The difference lies in our ideas 
of God. Let us compare ours with yours. 
Our God lives, does yours.? Our God helps, 
does yours? We have God manifest in 
Jesus Christ." That is the margin of the 
Christian religion — Faith in the Lord Jesus 
Christ. Or, to go back to our captain. 
When he wants to sail he says, '' I want gov- 
ernment help; who is the pilot that I can 
trust? " And when a man comes aboard, he 



TWIN CONDITIONS 139 

shows his certificate, and then the captain 
gives him the wheel. He takes orders from 
the pilot and gives them to the ship's crew. 

Now there are various pilots, so called, 
who are ready to wreck us more or less com- 
pletely for the honor of being pilots. There 
are Buddhist priests, and Mother Eddy, and 
Mr. Dowie, and Brigham Young and the 
Pope at Rome claiming to be divine pilots. 
But a wise man says, I want a certified pilot. 
And there is none but Jesus. I take Him 
as God's anointed Saviour for me. I take 
the chart He brings. I sail my craft under 
His guidance. I have repentance toward 
God, and Faith in Jesus as God's certified 
pilot. He is to me for practical life as He 
was to Thomas, *' My Lord and my God." 
Jesus is the full powered Ambassador of 
God. To so receive Him gives a man the 
Christian religion. Paul therefore says, 
^^ Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ J^ This 
faith is abiding confidence in Him and His 
teaching as that which our great divine Father 
desires us to do. Steer your course, it says, 
by the Christian chart. 



I40 RELIGION FOR MEN 

Someone may say, How am I to have 
faith In one whom I have never seen? And 
that Is a fair question. I should say first 
that we have the record of His teachings. 
To have faith In Him Is to accept His teach- 
ings as the chart of life. It is not essential 
that we know Him personally, or see Him in 
the flesh (John 20:29). If we know the 
principles He taught and accept them as our 
guide that Is faith In Him. He said. Why 
do you call me Lord and do not the things 
that I say? And again at the last part of 
the Sermon on the Mount He said, He that 
heareth these sayings of mine and doeth 
them. Is the man who builds on the rock. 

I do not say that the fullest faith Is the 
acceptance of Him merely as the divine 
Teacher — that however Is genuine faith. 
Someone has lately said that he believes In 
the teachings of Jesus, but he does not be- 
lieve In the person of Jesus; and that many 
people seem to believe in the person of Jesus 
who do not believe In His teachings. If 
there could be any such difference, the man 
that believes In the teaching so that he fol- 



TWIN CONDITIONS 141 

lows itj has the more substantial element of 
faith. He may lack the comfort of faith, 
but he has the guidance of God and he will 
get the reward of it. He has salvation, 
though he may lack the joy of salvation. 

The other part of faith is a sense of Jesus' 
personal companionship. This is the com- 
fortable side of faith. Some people, some 
of the time, have a very strong sense of the 
companionship of Jesus. A very godly man 
in Saratoga Springs once said to me that he 
often walked home from his store with a 
feeling that Jesus was with him and he might 
have touched Him with his hand. Others 
with not so much sense of the almost physical 
presence have what they cannot express bet- 
ter than to say with Prof. Gilmour : 

He leadeth me, O blessed thought, 

O words with heavenly comfort fraught. 

What ere I do, where ere I be. 

Still 'tis His hand that leadeth me. 

That is the climax of earthly faith; it 
makes the Christian religion glorious above 
all others. But not all have that. Such 



142 RELIGION FOR MEN 

things are for those who can so receive it. 
But the other — the joyous endeavor to fol- 
low Christ as God's voice to us — that is 
faith such as Paul preached. 



IV 

I am not specially trying to persuade men 
to faith, but I cannot, in justice to my own 
feelings, utterly omit a word of earnest ex- 
hortation. 

There is such a wondrous pilot for our 
lives. God called us into existence. He 
keeps us; He calls us; He is infinitely wise 
and loving. He knows the course and the 
storms. By every argument of duty, of grat- 
itude, of self-interest, we are exhorted to en- 
throne this God of all good as our King, and 
to take Jesus as the certified Pilot of life. 

The twin conditions are before us. Are 
they ours? Can we say that we are sailing 
our ship with Jesus as pilot, and accepting 
Him as the God appointed One? Then we 
are in the experience of the Christian religion. 
iWe may be meeting storms, and adverse 



TWIN CONDITIONS 143 

winds. The voyage may be long, but we 
may rest secure — 

"Not in doubt will be our journey's ending, 
Sin with its fears will vanish at the last, 
All its blest hopes in glad fulfillment blending. 
Life will be with us when the death is past." 



THE STEADY TENDENCY OF THE 
CHRISTIAN RELIGION 



SUGGESTION 

But we are all with unveiled face, beholding as in a 
mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the 
same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord, 
the Spirit. — 2 CoR. 3:18. 

It doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know 
that when he shall appear we shall be like him; for we 
shall see him as he is. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE STEADY TENDENCY OF THE CHRISTIAN 
RELIGION 

Paul Is writing to the church at Corinth 
about several subjects of importance, and 
among others he is replying to someone that 
had been telling the church that Paul was 
not a duly accredited minister — he was not 
really ordained at all, the apostles of Jesus 
had not appointed him — he had just come 
along there and preached. Someone had 
raised the question whether he had any cre- 
dentials. 

Replying to this he says in substance. 
This is very strange that you should want 
from me some letter from somebody to as- 
sure you that I am really a man to be trusted. 
You yourselves are my letter of commenda- 
tion. If anybody asks how you know Paul 
Is preaching the truth, ask him how a man 



148 RELIGION FOR MEN 

cured of a grievous malady knows that the 
doctor that cured him is a good doctor. 
Should such a man come to his doctor and 
say, *' Doctor, they are saying you do not 
know your business; that you are a quack. 
Are you really a good-for-nothing?" The 
doctor would say, *' John, were you fooling 
somebody when you sent for me?" ''No, 
indeed, I was not, I had been sick for days 
and was getting worse." *' John, did you 
take the medicine I gave you as I told you 
to?" "I certainly did." ''Did you get 
any relief? " " In four hours I began to 
improve and got well rapidly." " How are 
you now, John ? " "I am very well indeed." 
" And now you come and ask me if I am a 
quack! 1 1 It seems to me if there is a quack 
in this case It lies between you and me, and it 
is not me." 

That IS Paul's line of thought. And then 
he goes on to tell them why he preaches with 
so much confidence; why he uses such great 
boldness of speech. He says. When Moses 
was here he preached a message that was 
from the glory of Mt. Sinai, yet its result on 



THE STEADY TENDENCY 149 

men was to overwhelm them in despair. It 
might well be called a '' ministry of death." 
And you think he was justified in speaking 
boldly. But my message leads on not to 
death but to a glorious likeness to Christ. 
Shall I not then be justified in speaking 
boldly? And now he turns aside from his 
main thought to speak more fully about the 
character of his message. 

'^ We all beholding as in a mirror the 
glory of the Lord'^ — that Is, the Christian 
believers see In the gospel a reflection of the 
glory of Christ. They did not see Christ. 
We do not see Him. But In the story of 
His life and redemptive work we see His 
glorious character, His wondrous love; and 
seeing It — that Is by seeing it steadily — 
we are changed Into the same Image. We 
take on the same character and disposition. 
But It does not come at once, but ^^ from 
glory to glory/^ even as by the Spirit of the 
Lord. 

The theme of this chapter grows out of 
this word of Paul — The Steady Tendency 
of the Christian Religion. And you see the 



150 iRELIGION FOR MEN 

direction of this tendency is toward Christ- 
likeness in feeling and character. 



'All the Christian religion Is regulated by 
the Inner purpose to be good men. A man 
has an apple tree. He sees It grow from a 
little shoot up to a large tree. Some of Its 
energy Is expended In spreading roots; some 
In making strong limbs that will bear great 
weight; some In leaves that will grow and 
fall off; some in beautiful flowers that last 
a week and are gone ; some In fragrance that 
the wind blows away. And then comes lus- 
cious fruit. 

"Those delectable juices 
Flowed through the sinuous sluices 
Of sweet springs under the orchard, 
Climbed into fountains that chained them, 
Dripped into cups that retained them, 
And swelled till they dropped, and we gained them." 

But from the first swelling of the seed in 
the ground, up through all the experiences of 
years to the ripened apples, not an hour, and 
not an experience of that tree was unmindful 
of the purpose in that tree. When its leaves 



THE STEADY TENDENCY 151 

came out in spring, we saw the purpose; but 
when the leaves fell In autumn, and when 
the sap froze in winter, the purpose was al- 
ways there. Apples! Apples! Luscious 
Apples ! 

So all the experiences and teachings of the 
Christian religion are animate with the pur- 
pose to be Christlike. Change men into His 
image ! Change them into His image ! In 
times of joy, and in times of sadness; in 
times of seeming advance and in times when 
It looks as If he was forgetting; In all times 
the steady tendency Is — to make a man 
Christlike. Recall the teachings on that 
point. '' Whosoever heareth these sayings 
of mine and doeth them, I will liken him to 
a wise man which built his house upon a 
rock." (Matt. 7:26.)^ "If ye continue 
In my word, then are ye my disciples In- 
deed." (John 8 : 31.) '/' If ye abide In me 
and my word abide In you, ask what ye 
will" (John 15: 7).^ " Put ye on the Lord 
Jesus Christ." ( Rom. 13 : 14) . ** Let that 
mind be In you which was In Christ Jesus." 
(Phllipplans 2:5). Such are the finger 



152 RELIGION FOR MEN 

boards that point the way in the New Testa- 
ment. This is the standard with which true 
measurement is to be made : how much real 
honest goodness has ripened in our hearts? 
This is the gold in the ore that gives it value. 
We can endure much stone and sulphur if 
there is gold at last. We can overlook lack 
of culture, and much ignorance of theology. 
We can get along with queerness If only we 
see that people are good at heart; Christlikc 
in dispositions; people of faith in God, and 
love to men. 

And I want to reemphasize this because 
we are all the time liable to substitute some 
other aim. This is a great time for organi- 
zations. We have been a lot of single de- 
nominations, each going its own way with 
the Lord, and quite contented to do so. But 
now circumstances seem to point to some re- 
sponsibilities that call for united effort of all 
the Christians from California to Maine, and 
Canada to the Gulf. And we have been 
numbering our Israel. We talk about *' de- 
nominational consciousness " less than about 
" Christ consciousness." Wc are tempted 



THE STEADY TENDENCY 153 

to think that bigness is the same as goodness, 
and that organization is the same as sancti- 
fication. Sometimes churches build new 
houses, or pay off old mortgages, and they 
are tempted to think that paying and praying 
are identical. Some ministers who get great 
congregations and gain great numbers — 
and for that we may be thankful — are liable 
to think that a house full of people is equal 
to a people full of faith. 

All these subsidiary successes are the 
flowers and leaves of the tree, but unless the 
real reproduction of Christian goodness 
comes from' them they are blasted blossoms 
that fall and get no fruit. So when men 
complain, as they sometimes do, that the 
churches are not promoting Christlikeness, 
we must say in all sorrow: If that be true, 
if our influence In the community, if the in- 
fluence of our meetings on those that come to 
them, is not such as to be thrilled through 
and through with desire to be thoroughly 
good, then it fails to be Christian, for that 
is the aim of the gospel. We must see to it 
that our Christianity is more effective. 



154 RELIGION FOR MEN 

II 

But our text tells us not simply what ought 
to be but what Is the result of our Christian 
faith. We all ... beholding . . . are 
changed into His image. That is the actual 
fact. If we read the letter to Corinthians 
carefully, and see what sins were rampant 
there, and then see what Paul taught them, 
we shall see that they must have moved up 
to a higher plane. Look at some of the his- 
toric events. In Thessalonica, we are in- 
formed, they turned from worshiping idols 
to the worship of God; and that wherever 
Paul went men told him of the great results 
of th^ gospel in Thessalonica. They suf- 
fered persecution, and yet rejoiced. 

The missionary. Dr. Bunker, told us of a 
heathen village that he visited in Burmah. 
It was dirty, and the people were dirty. He 
stayed there a few days preaching this gospel 
of God and a few of them saw in it the glory 
of God. And then Dr. Bunker went away. 
It was two years before he was able to re- 
turn, and when he did a most remarkable 



THE STEADY TENDENCY 155 

thing took place. Those people have no 
song in their hearts, and so in their heathen 
state they have no singing. But when he 
came back he sent word he was coming, and 
as he came in sight of the village he was 
greeted by the sight of a little chapel they 
had built, and in front of it were a company 
of children in two rows, one on either side of 
the path, all clad in white, and as he came 
they sang some Christian songs their native 
teachers had learned and taught to them. 
Their lives were tending toward Christ- 
likeness. 

Dr. Richards, the missionary to Africa, 
told me that he had been some years in one 
village, and that the natives had so little re- 
gard for property rights, were so prompt to 
borrow, and so forgetful about returning, 
that he was afraid that they might take all 
that he had. He hesitated to translate the 
New Testament words, " Give to everyone 
that asketh you," for fear they would ask 
him for everything. But he decided to give 
them the truth and abide the consequences. 
And they did come to ask. One wanted his 



156 RELIGION FOR MEN 

butcher-knife, another his coat and another 
something else, and he gave them until he 
was badly crippled in his stock. But to his 
delight the next morning the chief brought 
back his knife, and by night all his goods were 
restored. After that they asked for nothing. 
He could leave a coat for a month hanging 
on the veranda while he was away and no 
one would touch it. One night when he was 
my guest, as I was locking my house, he said, 
" In my African village I do not lock my 
doors, they are all Christians there.'* 

Dr. Paton going to the Aniwa Island in 
the New Hebrides group found the people 
cannibals. When they wanted a good feast 
they cooked a white man. But in a few 
years he left them well-trained Christians. 

But let us not think that these results are 
all in semi-barbarous lands. All China is 
being thrilled with new hopes of life because 
men, that saw the glory of God in the face 
of Jesus have been beholding it and been 
changed into Christlikeness in heart. 

I have seen neighborhoods in cities, where 
noise and fighting and drunkenness abounded, 



THE STEADY TENDENCY 157 

taken in hand by some Sunday-school man. 
At first he had ragged and disorderly crowds, 
but soon order came out of chaos, quietness 
prevailed. The school became so much 
Christian that they felt like keeping out the 
ragged and disorderly and it was necessary 
to start a new work in another place to keep 
in touch with the lowest, neediest strata of 
people. 

Let the gospel get into any family, or any 
community, and it will bring in the Christian 
kind of feeling. 

I am not forgetting the imperfections of 
us all. But any fair-minded view of the case 
will show that those who really see and ac- 
cept the gospel, move always toward a Christ- 
like life — as Paul says, " From Glory to 
Glory.'' 

Ill 

Another matter worth our notice is the 
transforming agency in all this work — '' Be- 
holding the glory of the Lord'' That is, 
by discovering that the Lord is glorious they 
are changed. Sometimes we have visions of 



158 [RELIGION FOR MEN 

the glory of Jesus. He seems to us the very 
chiefest among ten thousand. Now it is a 
principle of our life that we are always lifted 
up, or put down, by that which we think is 
glorious. A boy who thinks the vicious hero 
of some dime novel is glorious, has already 
gone a long way towards a vicious life. The 
man who thinks some unscrupulous politician 
is a glorious fellow, is well trained in 
crookedness already. And, on the other 
hand, the man who sees a good man as 
glorious is on the way to goodness. To see 
such glory in anyone is to take him as an 
ideal, and ideals make the men. It is the 
natural working of our make-up that we try 
to be like what we think is glorious. Now, 
says Paul, they who see Jesus as glorious, 
and steadfastly look at Him are changed into 
His image by the looking. John has a sim- 
ilar idea when he says : '' It doth not yet ap- 
pear what we shall be, but we know that when 
he shall appear we shall be like him, for we 
shall see him as he is." It is a common fact 
of life that children are predetermined in life 
by their surroundings '■ — r the things that make 



THE STEADY TENDENCY 159 

the deep impressions on them. If then a 
child somehow comes to see Jesus as glorious, 
that decides the trend of life. In one of the 
large stores in Cincinnati, they had a white 
marble statue of a Grecian woman. It had 
a beautiful face. The hair was combed back 
and fastened in a graceful fashion — far bet- 
ter than the wild fashions of our day. One 
day a little girl clad in poor clothing, with 
hands and face dirty, her hair unkempt, en- 
tered the store. She came up before that 
marble woman with a look of startled sur- 
prise. For some time she looked at it, and 
then involuntarily she smoothed back her 
hair with her hands. She came in again next 
day, and again and again, until the clerks 
noticed her; and each time she was more tidy, 
her face and hands cleaner, and her hair 
combed back from her fine brow. She had 
seen the glory of that statue and it was trans- 
forming her life. So the surroundings, the 
mental and moral atmosphere affect us all, 
for men are only grown-up boys. 

This beholding should be specific, not gen- 
eral. When men seek health in some foreign 



i6o RELIGION FOR MEN 

climate, they seek one that is suitable to their 
ailment. One goes to the mountains, another 
to the sea, another to Canada. When men 
want to engage in raising any kind of grain or 
fruit, they choose climate, and cultivate soil 
to match their aim. If a man is studying 
French, he picks his books and companions 
among the French. So our Christian com- 
mon sense, seeking to perfect our Christian 
life, seeks that kind of special cultivation that 
is needed. The man of emotional tempera- 
ment needs building up in the ethical side of 
his nature. The cold logical man needs to 
come under the morning sun of the emotional 
truths, that the frozen blood in his veins may 
become warm blood. And his discipline, his 
self-discipline, needs to be specific, not gen- 
eral in its character. If a man is quick- 
tempered, he should do those things that 
help such quick-tempered men as he is. If 
he is sharp in speech, he should do what 
cures that specific fault. We may spend too 
much time in little frivolous details about 
Bible history, and too little in getting true 



iTHE STEADY TENDENCY i6i 

ideas of Jesus' moral image. It is not so 
much matter what mountain Jesus sat upon 
when He talked about the Beatitudes, but it 
is of great importance that we see the gentle, 
trustful, peace-loving spirit that Is under 
them. It does not matter greatly whether 
we know just how Satan tempted Jesus on: 
the mountain, nor just how Satan took Him 
to the pinnacle of the Temple; but it is very 
good to see His reverent, obedient spirit, 
and His resolute dismissal of the temptation. 
The great need of us all is clearer, juster 
views of Jesus. We see the glory of His 
tender mercy to the poor sinners that came 
to Him, and that is good. It makes us more 
tender to see this in Him. But one may see 
glory in that and not see the glory of Jesus 
in His patience with the slowness of his own 
disciples to understand Him. I think we 
ministers need to see that. We are In such 
a hurry to see men do just right that we get 
irritated and sometimes discouraged at the 
delay. We need to behold that feature 
of Jesus. 



1 62 RELIGION FOR MEN 

' And we may need to see His glory in the 
activities for men's welfare. We may need 
to see his indignation and injustice. 

IV 

And this transformation is progressive: 
^' From glory to glory J' We sometimes 
hear about sudden cataclysmic experiences 
in which men say they have become '* per- 
fectly sanctified." Well, we may get light 
on that by asking those who live with them. 
I knew of a woman in Cincinnati that posed 
as a '' Saviour." She gathered a few weak 
people about her. Someone asked her hus- 
band if he thought she was a Saviour^ 
*VNo," said he, "I have to live with her." 
Those who claim perfection are usually lack- 
ing either in moral integrity or in fine moral 
perception. The transformation here spok- 
en of is not sudden but progressive, because 
the discovery of the glory is progressive. 
Just as one sees new beauty in a landscape 
every year, and hears new music in the songs 
of birds each returning season; and new 
glory in his children as they unfold like rose 



THE STEADY TENDENCY 163 

buds, so Christians may see new glory in 
Jesus as they continue to behold Him. The 
first disciples saw Him as a wondrous healer. 
*' We never have seen things like this be- 
fore!" they said. Then they stayed and 
heard Him preach and they saw new glory. 
Such truth as He uttered ! Such holy ideals 
as He set forth! He is the most glorious 
of teachers! He speaks as one having au- 
thority! And then when He went to the 
cross and the tomb and came forth from the 
grave, they said, ** He is the chiefest among 
ten thousand," '' Let the angels of God wor- 
ship Him." So now our passing years give 
us new Ideas of His glory; and each new 
phase awakens new tendencies in us toward 
His likeness. 

V 

Suffer me a word of earnest exhortation. 
If you were to examine your view of Jesus 
to-day, what are the elements in it that ap- 
pear glorious? One of our questions to the 
300 ministers we at the Seminary are trying 
to teach by correspondence, is this one: 



i64 RELIGION FOR MEN 

" What are the things that move you most 
in the preaching you hear?'' A man last 
week replying, said, *' I am always most 
deeply moved by what one man suffers for 
another." Is that what moves you most? 
Or Is It the beauty of his faith in God? Or 
his readiness to forgive? Or his confidence 
In humanity as redeemable ? Or his breadth 
of love? Which is it? 

Let me exhort you to behold Him Intel- 
ligently and steadfastly and hopefully, and 
you will be transformed into His image. 

Some years ago I was In a photographer's 
room, and a little child came in for a photo- 
graph. The artist put the child in a chair, 
and adjusted his camera. It was in the old 
times when they needed time exposures. 
Then he put a sensitive plate in the camera. 
*' Now, my child, sit still. One, two, three, 
four, five! All right now." And that sen- 
sitive plate had taken on the Image of that 
child! From it pictures were made for all 
the friends. That was a wonderful thing 
to me. But I thought of this text and it Is 



THE STEADY TENDENCY 165 

far more wonderful. If one, with a crabbed, 
suspicious disposition, could go and look at 
a fine portrait on the wall, and come out 
with his own imperfections of disposition 
gone, and the regular, manly, noble expres- 
sions of that picture had somehow been made 
his own, especially if the wrinkles in the 
brow, and that suspicious look, that guilty 
look, that hang-dog expression that some- 
times comes, that glum, lowering, fault-find- 
ing, pessimistic look which at times clouds 
men's faces — all that gone, and the open 
countenance, and clear, steady eye, and cheer- 
ful smile *' that doesn't come off " had come 
in its place, what a wonder that would 
be! If gazing at some portrait could do 
that for us we would take an hour's treat- 
ment before it daily. 

And yet wonderful as it may seem, that is 
what Paul says happens to the man's disposi- 
tion, his moral face, who steadfastly beholds 
the glory of Jesus. If we can find time each 
day to think of Jesus' glorious character and 
let it clear the atmosphere of our hearts for 



i66 RELIGION FOR MEN 

a little while we shall find It will change us 
into His image from glory to glory, even as 
by the Spirit of the Lord. 

Prayer. — Lord Jesus, when thou wast on 
earth the blind came to Thee and Thou 
didst touch their eyes and they were made 
to see. Open, we pray Thee, the eyes of 
our hearts that we may see Thy glory more 
clearly, and may thus be transformed more 
into Thine image. May our dispositions be- 
come more like Thine, and our lives follow 
more carefully Thine example. 



THE GLORIOUS TRIUMPH OF THE 
CHRISTIAN RELIGION 



SUGGESTION 

Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory through 
our Lord Jesus Christ. — i Cor. 15:57. 

The day of resurrection 
Earth, tell it out abroad. 
The passover of gladness, 
The passover of God 
From death to life eternal, 
From earth unto the sky 
Our Christ has brought us over 
With hymns of victory. 

'—John of Damascus, 8th Century. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE GLORIOUS TRIUMPH OF THE 
CHRISTIAN RELIGION 

Paul wrote, " I show you a mystery." 
A mystery is not something hard to under- 
stand, but it is something hard to find out. 
It is something that no man could himself 
find out, but when he has been told he sees 
it to be a most reasonable and natural thing. 
The event of which Paul writes is one that 
must have been revealed or we should not 
have known It. Knowledge of what will 
come to us after death lies beyond possible 
human discovery. One chapter of Paul 
contains the statement of the mystery; and 
It gives us the picture quite fully so far as 
It concerns our religious hopes. It does not 
answer questions of mere curiosity, but it 
tells what the heart wants to know. And 
>vhen Paul has presented the picture of that 
169 



I70 RELIGION FOR MEN 

great culmination of the Christian economy, 
he breaks out In thanks to God, who through 
Jesus has given such a splendid triumph to 
his cause. I suppose there was a radiance 
of glory to that victory, partly because the 
Christians at Corinth were living in persecu- 
tion, and that was the lot of them all at 
times, and to tell them of such a triumph 
was to bring them a message of great joy. 
But as we think of it, the glory of such an 
ending is more full and glorious to us than 
it was to them. The lines of its beauty may 
be different for those who in the safety of 
modern liberty of opinion think calmly about 
it; but they are not less brilliant nor less sat- 
isfying. Paul looked out from one sort of 
trial, and took courage when he thought of 
the Resurrection. We look out from dif- 
ferent surroundings, but we look at the same 
event. That is to be the culmination of our 
Christian endeavors. Let us consider some- 
what broadly the Glorious Triumph of the 
Christian Religion. 



THE GLORIOUS TRIUMPH 171 



The first triumph for us is the victory over 
our irreligion. We have before spoken 
about irreligion. It is not hostility to Christ 
or to God. It is not immorality. It is not 
inhumanity to man. It is living without any 
conscious relation and trust toward our 
Father in Heaven. It is God-less-ness, lack 
of God. And such a lack leaves us without 
the best inspiration to life, without the best 
comfort in sorrow, without any satisfactory 
guidance in conduct, and without any key to 
the riddle of our existence. And as the 
dawn of our consciousness of Him comes on 
we are filled with anxiety, it may be with 
fears, because though we recognize Him, we 
are not reconciled to Him. 

This may in this practical age seem to be 
rather Inward and psychological, or to use 
the older word, experimental. But the facts 
of religious life are always inward at first. 
Our relations to God are the first concern 
when once we think of the deepest things. 
The old-fashioned question used to be, 



172 RELIGION FOR MEN 

"Have you made your peace with God?" 
That question was not framed in a theolog- 
ical seminary. It grew up in the hearts of 
men who had been troubled with a sense of 
fear or anxiety, and then come into rest and 
peace. It is what Jesus had in mind when 
He said, '' Ye shall find rest unto your souls." 
To triumph over this great fear, to come out 
of that great darkness, to get into harmony 
with God. That is the great initial victory 
of the Christian life. 

It is not all of it. It is not a large part 
of it, but it is vital. Once a man has settled 
his relation to God, life has a destiny, his 
voyage has a haven, and a chart, and a pilot. 
Rest unto your souls ! O you who are 

. . . tossed about 
With many a conflict, many a doubt, 
Fightings within and fears without. 

If you would take Jesus' yoke, — take 
Him as your teacher and master, you would 
have rest of soul. 

We may not all expect to understand 
everything that the New Testament says, nor 
all that Christians say, for their words are 



THE GLORIOUS TRIUMPH 173 

only signs of experiences, and we must have 
the experiences to fully understand the 
words; but let me state them. Paul said, 
*' Being justified by faith we have peace with 
God." Again he said, *' The Kingdom of 
heaven is righteousness and peace and joy 
in the Holy Spirit." *' I beseech you there- 
fore be ye reconciled to God," — and recon- 
ciliation must mean to be brought into that 
state of mind in which we are satisfied with 
His character. His aims and His methods. 
'Again he prayed that men might have the 
peace of God that passeth all understanding. 
And in Romans 8, '' There is therefore now 
no condemnation to them that are in Christ 
Jesus." God Is thus put back into proper 
relations to life. 

So Christian people have always felt. In 
New England, when Jonathan Edwards was 
the great pulpit light, people generally 
thought that orthodox ideas were the heart 
of orthodox religion, and so the experiences 
of the heart had less attention than the ex- 
ercises of the head. To have '' assurance " 
was not called *' sound " theology. But 



174 RELIGION FOR MEN 

Mrs. Edwards knew the Lord and His peace. 
She wrote: " People may call this blessing 
by what name they please, It makes no dif- 
ference to me whether they give it a name 
or no name, it continues a blessed reality, and 
thanks to my heavenly Father, it Is my priv- 
ilege to enjoy It.'* 

Spurgeon said : " I went around like a 
wounded deer, carrying the arrow and its 
pain with me, but when I looked unto the 
Lord I found healing." President Steele 
said, after a great trial to find rest: "My 
joy at first has subsided into a delicious and 
unruffled peace." President Finney of Ober- 
lin wrote that after he had yielded himself 
to God, the whole world took on a new look, 
the birds sang more sweetly, the skies looked 
brighter. One writer says, '' Immediately 
there came to me great peace." Another 
wrote; "Somehow I lost my load." An- 
other; "When I yielded, peace filled my 
soul." The quaint old evangelist of New 
York, Elder Chamberlain said: "Somehow 
I fell in love with God and His people." 
An old minister In Illinois said he felt as if 



THE GLORIOUS TRIUMPH 175 

he could *' walk on eggs and not break 
them.'* And Bunyan's poor Pilgrim is rep- 
resented as coming along with the mud from 
the Slough of Despond still on him, climb- 
ing up the hill wearily, with a pack like a Jew 
peddler's on his back — -the burden of his 
sin. And he comes to the wicket gate and 
knocks, and is admitted to the way of salva- 
tion. Then he gets instruction from the 
Bible, and now he goes up the way to a cross, 
and there his burden falls off and he sees it 
no more. That is Bunyan's way of telling 
about his victory. These experiences are 
not studied forms, they come as the endeav- 
ors of common people to tell what they have 
experienced. When we come to the more 
studied expressions they generally take the 
form of hymns ; and our books are replete 
with such hymns as — 

" When peace like a river attendeth my way," etc. 

"Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine," etc. 

" When I can read my title clear, 
To mansions in the skies, 
ril bid farewell to every fear 
And wipe my weeping eyes." 



?76 RELIGION FOR MEN 

II 

But I have said that this peace with God 
is the initial victory, not the full or final one. 
As Jesus won His final but not His only or 
His greatest victory over Satan on the 
Mount of Temptation, so the Christian has 
other and greater victories after he is at 
peace with God. 

The Christian wins victory over his own 
wicked habits and thoughts and feelings. 
One of the evidences that men have truly 
become Christians is that they live after a 
new fashion. We never expect a man to 
continue quiescent under evil habits after he 
becomes a Christian. He feels a new im- 
pulse to the right, and he puts off the old 
man and puts on the new man that *' after 
God hath been created In righteousness and 
holiness of truth." (Eph. 4: 24.) 

In spite of all that has not been conquered, 
a fair view of the influences of the Christian 
religion will convince that Its history In in- 
dividual souls, or In families, or communi- 
ties, IS one of victory. As the years pass, 



THE GLORIOUS TRIUMPH 177 

they that keep in touch with the Lord and 
His word, come to think His thoughts after 
Him. The crudities of their theories of 
life, the deficiencies in their thinking, the in- 
conclusiveness of their reasonings, gradually 
yield to His truth until they see and announce 
the wisdom of His ways. 

And, more to the point, victory is won 
over the feelings. Men not only restrain 
their speech but they become kind at heart. 
Professor James, quoting a literary man's 
words about another popular writer, says: 
" I used to think he watched himself, and 
would not allow his tongue to give expression 
to antipathy or complaint; but after long ob- 
servation I satisfied myself that the absence 
of such was real. He did not say unkind 
things, for he did not feel them." We all 
know people that have taken what we may 
call a thorough course of Christian treat- 
ment, and they have become sweet, and 
patient, and charitable and long-suffering. 
Paul's list of what Christian love will do, 
as given in I Cor. 13, is subject to daily veri- 
fication in any community. They that are 



178 RELIGION FOR MEN 

buried with Christ do rise to newness of 
life — perpetual newness — growing life. 
'' Who Is he that overcometh the world but 
he that believeth that Jesus is the Christ? " 
" This the victory, even our faith.'* 

There are philosophies that oppose this 
religion. Men in their thinking attempt to 
construct theories of the world that will ac- 
count for what is. They are constantly cor- 
recting their theories and as time goes on 
it is becoming evident that the idea of crea- 
tion that underlies the Bible statements, after 
they have been clearly stated, and the idea 
of the latest philosophy, are approaching one 
another and they will ultimately be co-ter- 
minus — just alike. 

So there is a psychology that seeks to ac- 
count for the varieties of Christian expe- 
rience. They say that Paul, trained as he 
was from childhood in ceremonialism, and 
being what he was in his mental ability and 
temperament, could not have had any other 
kind of a conversion than he did. He must 
fight. He was not an unresisting sucker to 
be pulled ashore easily. Fie was like the 



THE GLORIOUS TRIUMPH 179 

pugnacious trout that will bend your pole 
and test your line before you land him. 
While John, they say, was different. Edu- 
cate a child for it, they say, and you can make 
him either a Buddhist or a Christian. There 
is much truth in this. Religion is in large 
measure a matter of psychology. It Is an 
inner experience at the root. But there Is 
more than psychology In Christian experi- 
ence, there Is an established order In the soul 
life. The man who sows seed and cultivates 
well will get flowers by established laws. 
He can foretell his crop. So In the religious 
life there are laws that In an orderly way 
work to make men Christian. But there are 
exceptions. Just as Jesus made wine at 
Cana by a short process, and yet did no dis- 
credit to the usual way; just as He healed 
the sick by unusual methods, without dis- 
crediting the laws of health, or the honor 
of medical science; so He did In Paul's case, 
— • and He may In others — put out the hand 
of His power, and brought him to penitence 
by a short method without discrediting the 
way of early training and persuasion. Pro- 



i8o RELIGION FOR MEN 

fessor James, who was not writing to defend 
Christian theories, calls such cases as Paul's, 
the cases of '* supernaturally regenerated 
people." 

And there Is victory over mammon. 
And mammon is not mere love of money. 
That Is miserliness, or greed of gain. Mam- 
mon is love of what money buys. The man 
that loves luxury and the kind of honor that 
wealth brings is the man whom mammon 
controls, and the one for whom Jesus con- 
tends. Riches are not signs of dishonesty. 
We know men that cannot buy a night's 
lodging who are dishonest as they have an 
opportunity to be; and we know men that 
have made great wealth by honest means — • 
and they are not subjects of mammon. 
Money in the hands of good men is great 
power. We may be thankful that our coun- 
try is a money making country. May still 
more of it be madel Nature and oppor- 
tunity are enriching us. But may we have 
grace to be its master and not its slave. 
And religion is winning Its victory over 



THE GLORIOUS TRIUMPH i8i 

mammon very rapidly. Thousands of men 
and women are consecrating money and heart 
to good things. 

Ill 

This religious faith is the victory that tri- 
umphs over circumstances. Paul and Silas, 
shut in the inner prison with feet in the 
stocks, could sing to God. Bishop Latimer 
could say to Ridley as they were going to be 
burned at the stake: '' Be of good comfort, 
Master Ridley. Play the man; we shall 
this day light a candle by God's grace in Eng- 
land, as I trust will never be put out." 

Samuel Rutherford in prison In Scotland 
wrote his friend, — '' Believe me, brother, I 
give it to you under mine own hand writ, 
that whoso looketh to the white side of 
Christ's cross and can take It up handsomely 
with faith and courage, will find it such a 
burden as sails are to a ship, and wings to 
a bird. I find that my Lord hath over- 
gilded that black tree and hath perfumed it, 
and oiled it with joy and consolation. My 



i82 RELIGION FOR MEN 

prison IS a palace to me, and Christ's ban- 
queting house." * 

The cry for wings is old as humanity, 
wrote Hannah Smith. Our souls are made 
to mount up with wings. What are these 
wings? Their secret Is contained in the 
words, *^ They that wait upon the Lord." 
If we fly high enough we escape every snare 
laid for us. 

But no Christian man need to go away from 
home to find victory over circumstances. 
Our churches have many who know what 
contented minds and triumphant spirits can 
live in most trying surroundings. 



IV 



But a greater victory still is the victory 
over death. There are two phases to this 
victory. One is that in which we think of 
death as the penalty for sin. In that sense 
death has no fear, for Jesus died for our 
sins. He offered the satisfactory expiation, 
whatever that may have been. In Him we 

*Rutherford*s Letters, pp. 128, 140. 



THE GLORIOUS TRIUMPH 183 

are considered as having ourselves been cruci- 
fied, and in His resurrection, as having been 
raised. Much of the Scripture language is 
based and framed on that idea of death. It 
is figurative and hard to grasp clearly, but 
the outcome of it is plain. There is now 
no element of penalty in death for the Chris- 
tian man. The whole attitude of men 
toward death is changed. He delivered 
them that through fear of death were all 
their life time subject to bondage. 

The Christian that can read his privilege 
clear has no need to fear death. He may 
shrink from the physical fact, he may not be 
willing to part with friends here, and to leave 
family without him, he may want to stay and 
complete tasks he has undertaken, but death 
as a penalty Is gone from his thought. 
*' The sting of death Is sin." But If sin Is 
forgiven there Is no sting. A man who 
shrinks from going to Sing Sing as a pris- 
oner, might not hesitate to go as a citizen. 
One might be willing to go to Siberia to live, 
who would fear to go as a prisoner. The 
well-Instructed Christian knows that there is 



1 84 RELIGION FOR MEN 

no condemnation to him. He is justified 
freely by His grace. No temporal afflictions 
are penalties. Neither sorrows nor adver- 
sities, nor sicknesses nor persecutions, neither 
things present nor things to come are penal- 
ties. There are consequences or natural re- 
sults. There may be chastenings, but pen- 
alties none. " He bore our sins and by His 
stripes we are healed." When the prodigal 
son received the kiss of forgiveness, he was 
not sent out to atone for his wanderings by 
hard work. And that is a great triumph. 
Even though death as a fact remains, its 
terror is gone — it has In It no sting. We 
may approach It — 

" Not like the quarry slave at night, 
Scourged to his dungeon, but sustained and soothed 
By an unfaltering trust, approach the grave 
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 
About him and lies down to pleasant dreams." 

The Other phase of death presents It as 
the ending of life. 

Mere taking away of fear of death as 
penalty does not give us assurance of future. 
But this chapter tells us not only that death 



THE GLORIOUS TRIUMPH 185 

has no sting, but that the grave has no vic- 
tory. Death does not deprive us of any- 
thing. 

Rev. Thomas Armitage, forty years pastor 
of a church in New York City, was feeble 
for some months before his death, and I 
visited him occasionally. He said to me one 
day: '' I have always been perplexed by the 
fact that the Bible speaks so unconcernedly 
about death, but now I know why. Death 
does not interfere with anything of real value 
to me — it is utterly powerless." 

An aged minister at whose dying bedside 
I sat said, when I spoke about death, '' Oh, 
It gives me no concern more than to pack my 
satchel and go to visit my children. In a 
few days I shall be with my wife and some 
of the family." 

Mr. Moody said once when a friend was 
expressing sympathy with him at some loss 
of property in the Chicago fire: *' Oh, it 
has not touched my real property, that is laid 
up where moth and rust doth not corrupt." 
Luther when he had grown old said, *' I pray 
the Lord will come forthwith and carry me 



1 86 RELIGION FOR MEN 

hence. I would readily eat up this necklace 
(which he was holding) for the judgment to 
come to-morrow." And so the evangelist 
said, Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly. 

We do not cease to be. These throbbing 
souls of ours with their love, and praise, and 
their holy ambition, go right on. Not a 
noble purpose but will be forwarded there; 
not a holy ambition but will have its grati- 
fication then. The Christian fellowship will 
become purer and stronger. James and 
John were brothers according to the flesh, 
then brothers in Christ, then brothers in the 
Apostolic Commission, and now they are fel- 
low-laborers in some holy cause. If there 
IS anything plain about the resurrection of 
Jesus, it is that He was the same Jesus — 
the record makes that certain. He con- 
tinued His conversation along the same 
lines; He picked up the thread of His instruc- 
tion where He had laid it down. Angels 
said. This same Jesus will come again. Jesus, 
the name His mother used, when she said, 
*' Jesus, mother wants you to come in." 
His whole intercourse with them was like a 



THE GLORIOUS TRIUMPH 187 

continued story — one chapter ended on Fri- 
day to be continued Sunday — and another 
chapter ended at the Ascension to be con- 
tinued at the Resurrection, and the story may 
be broken into other chapters. Our partner- 
ship with Him has begun — it will not end — 

"Death like a narrow sea divides 
The Heavenly land from ours/' 

But when the waters of Jordan open for 
us, we take ourselves, with whatever of love 
and hope we may have, over with us, and 
continue our life — on higher planes, and 
with greater victories, like orange trees 
moved from New England frosts to Flor- 
ida's soil and balmy skies. 



But if we could see all Christian charity 
ruling in society, so that bitterness and envy, 
hatred and malice, greed and cruelty were 
all banished; if men should come to love 
their neighbors as themselves ; If business was 
so organized that there would be no unjust 
inequalities; if agriculture was so developed 



1 8 8 RELIGION FOR MEN 

that mother earth supplied an abundance for 
all, and society distributed it impartially, 
surely that would be a good victory. And 
that victory is to come. We are taught to 
expect that His Kingdom will come in earth 
as in Heaven. Here in this chapter we read 
that Jesus is to have control of our earthly 
matters until the enemies are all put down 
— defeated. But great as that victory will 
be. It cannot satisfy the hearts of men that 
love Jesus and that love one another. 
There are inner longings for power, and for 
knowledge, and for fellowship with the 
saints that have gone on before, which can- 
not be satisfied while we are in the earthly 
conditions. Flesh and blood cannot inherit 
the Kingdom of Heaven, because the King- 
dom of Heaven is made up of experiences 
that transcend the power of flesh and blood. 
For example, we desire to counsel or com- 
fort a friend in China. We cannot do it be- 
cause of distance and expense. Before we 
can get there we are not needed. No 
amount of love among men can overcome 
that difficulty. Or, we want to know things 



THE GLORIOUS TRIUMPH 189 

about men's souls. We must find them out 
by slow processes of induction, always liable 
to error, and always incomplete for lack of 
facts. No amount of good fellowship, or 
good health, or good government, can make 
these slow moving brains of ours know 
things that take place in another man's mind. 
We see all things darkly. We should still 
have a longing for some better organism for 
our souls. We should long for powers that 
flesh and blood cannot contain. And then 
death would come and cut off our activities. 
Plans incomplete, personal powers unde- 
veloped, knowledge just gained and no op- 
portunity to use it. Bright students for 
whom parents have labored and prayed, and 
that have themselves been studious, and have 
graduated honorably; public men who have 
thought out problems for the public good, 
and are ready to get them into practice, die; 
children born, with all hope and possibility 
before them, die in youth. How such an 
ending casts a mist of tears over the bright- 
est of prospects! 

But the message of the Resurrection is not 



I90 RELIGION FOR MEN 

only that death does not end all and that life 
still goes on. Death Is not only the trans- 
ferring of life to new environment, the trans- 
planting of a soul to new climate, the final 
victory, so far as made known. Is not that 
this mortal puts on Immortality. But these 
bodies of ours will be changed like unto His 
own most glorious body. No wonder that 
men have asked. With what body do they 
come? No man knows more than Is stated 
here, '* flesh and blood cannot Inherit " that 
kingdom. But with a body suited to Its new 
environment we shall live and sing. 

What can we know about It, we ask? 
And at once we are thrown back upon our 
Imagination. But Imagination Is the great 
force of life In all departments. A man 
cannot build a new house, nor a woman get 
a new dress, without enlisting imagination. 
We do not know in detail the organism that 
will be ours. It will be adapted to our 
spirits — they will not be hampered by the 
slow moving material of these bodies. 

I once saw almost a resurrection. A great 
ugly worm was hurrying along as if going 



THE GLORIOUS TRIUMPH 191 

to a train. It crawled out on a limb of a 
tree and began to weave its own casket. 
Then it fell asleep. Suppose some power 
was ours to talk with it, and we had talked 
with it. Why are you working so hard to 
weave that casket? Well, I expect to come 
out of it by and by. With what body will 
you come ? I do not know. I believe it will 
be glorious, so I am getting ready for It. 
And then one of its neighbors breaks in and 
says, Yes, he is following a will-o'-the-wisp. 
He is living in impossible imaginings. I am 
not going to waste any of my time or thought 
weaving caskets. It may be hard lines for 
me but I shall meet my death bravely and 
that will end it. But the other one keeps 
on getting ready. 

Someone took that cocoon and hung it in 
the house where the sun could warm it. 
One day a few weeks after I saw it creep out 
of the casket. It was dripping wet with 
some sort of fluid. And then there slowly 
unfolded great wings that had been stowed 
away like a close-folded silk umbrella. 
They spread out half as large as my hands, 



192 RELIGION FOR MEN 

beautifully resplendent in the sunshine. It 
waved them slowly in the air to dry them; 
then it took a few moments' rest, as if it was 
getting used to its resurrection life, looking 
around on its new heaven. Then that crea- 
ture, that had never flown, and had never 
seen its parents to be taught by them, let go 
its hold upon the casing, fell back into the 
air, caught itself on its wings, and went 
triumphantly away into the sunshine and the 
fields. That ugly worm, crawling about 
under foot, triumphing over what men call 
death. What a mystery ! What a miracle ! 

And if God will do this for a worm, shall 
we stand bewildered and benumbed with un- 
belief when He says He will change the 
bodies of our human nature like unto His 
own most glorious body? Bodies incom- 
parable, immortal, glorious? God forbid! 
Such are the elements that make the Chris- 
tian victory glorious. 

In view of this Paul says, Be ye steadfast, 
immovable, always abounding in the work 
of the Lord. 

THE END 



AUG 24 1912 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: April 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 






iiif! 






il|!!i!liii!t!litiii 



If! 






!1 I I !!!;'.■:;: 



l-.iujd'iltrll I il i ii. ; 









:'!iiiiiji!j" 

::;;:';jii 



II 









ll!l.''!?l:!!''Uj 






iiiiiiili 



!;i'!'hi!jll! 
ililHiiiji 

ii iii 

llliliilrlllil 

iipiiiiiiiiiiili: 



nil 






it lililiiilt!* 



lillll 



i ill 
i|{liliir'' 



ll:H;i|l{!li 



mm 



illii i;!'f;i iiil 



liiiii Iiil ;i!|: 



, , ''liii 111'' P- 



'^^■"'!:l!ll!i!!|!ll| 






!|!i 



lihil 

I 



JlpilHlliilrl 






'!!r.:''iii.iiiiiiililliii;!;^: ::^i^i;Nli!ltlli 



. "tk 



I Ml! : 



Ml 



Iiil 



If llliljil, 

it ' 






LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




014 022 165 A 



